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Our Pariahs 


AMONG THE TRAMPS 

THE TRAMP’S PARADISE 
SLIM JIM'S STORY 
PAT SHORTY, THE COAL-DIGGER 
• JAKE TRUEHEART, THE FARMER 
PROFESSOR TRUMP 


UNCLE T 1 W 


CHICAGO, NEW YORK, and SAN FRANCISCO 

HELFORl), CJ.ARKE & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 

LONDON : H. J. Dranh, Lovell’s Court, Paternoster Row. 

The Household Library. No. 13, Vol. 4. Nov. 19, 1888. Annual Subscription $30.00. Issued semi- 
weekly. Elntered at the Post Office at Chicagro as second class matter. 




THE POLITICS OF LABOR. 

By Phillips Thompson. 1 voL, 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

“ This book will mark an epoch in American thought. It is fully up with the times. 
* * ♦ It is the prophet of the New Era.”— People, .ff. /. 

“ One of the most valuable works drawn out by current discussions on social and econ- 
omical questions, and one that is sure to take a high place in the permanent and standard 
literature of the limes,.— Opinion, Rockland. 

“ This book is enlightening and inspiring; every thoughtful man and woman should 
read \l." —Tribune, Junction City. 

“ Mr. Thompson presents the whole question of land and labor reform as clearly as 
could be desried.”— Chicago. 

BANCROFT’S HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By Geor&e Bancroft. Two vols in one. 12nio. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Since Ranke’s death George Bancroft is the greatest living hi-<torian. The American 
citizen who has not read his history of the United States is a poor patriot, or an unfortu- 
nately ignorant person. We fear there are too man V of them, as there are of those wno 
have never even read the constitution of their country. It is not too late for these delin- 
quents to buy a copy of this great book, and learn something that will be of interest and 
profit the remainder of their lives.” — The Churchman. 

THE STORY OF MANON LESCAUT. 

From the French of L’Abbe Prevost. A new translation, by Arthur W. 
Gundry, from the French edition of 1753, with over 200 full-page and 
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Reproduced by photogravure, wood-engraving, and photo-engraving 
processes from the superb edition de luxe, published in Paris in 1885. 
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By Edith Healy. Illustrated by 25 original copperplate engravings of 
choice masterpieces of the leading Italian painters, executed in the high- 
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Richly bound, extra cloth, gold title and ornamentation, $5.00. Full 
morocco, $4.00. Cloth, school edition, $1.25. 

WASHINGTON IRVING’S 

LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

3 vols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols., 
12mo., half calf, $9.00. 

To speak at this late day in praise of Irving’s “ Life of Washington ” would be like 
painting marble or gilding refined gold. No American library, public or private, is com- 
plete without this work. This is a new edition, printed from new plates, at a very mode-, 
rate price. 

LES MISERABLES. 

By Victor Hugo. 1 vol., large 12mo., $1 50 ; the same on heavy paper in 3 
vols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols., 
12mo., half calf, $9.00. Illustrated 

“ Les Miserables ” is universally admitted to be the great masterpiece of Victor Hugo, 
that brisrhtest literary light of modern Prance. This book, once carefully read will never 
be forgotten. The study of it is an education. 

BllLFOniy, CLARKE A CO,, Publishers, 

CHICAGO, NSW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 


AMONG THE TRAMPS 




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Our Pariahs 


AMON G THE TRAMPS 


THE TRAMPS PARADISE 
SLIM JIM’S STORY 
PAT SHORTY, THE COAL-DIGGER 
JAKE TRUEHEART, THE FARMER 
PROFESSOR TRUMP 


UNCLE'T^M^^ 





Chicago, New York, and San Francisco 

BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY 

London 

H. J. DRANE, LOVELL’S COURT, PATERNOSTER ROW 





Copyright, 1889, 

BY 

Belford, Clarke & Co. 


Most Respectfully Dedicated 


TO 

?l?on. SffilillCam 3oi, i!WotrC0on, 


That fearless Pioneer and far-sighted Statesman, 
WHO, single-handed and alone, 

First unfurled the Banner of Tariff Reform in 
THE FACE OF THE MIGHTY PHALANX OF ORGANIZED 
Selfish Greed and Legalized Robbery. 


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AMONG THE TRAMPS. 


THE TRAMP’S PARADISE. 

“ Hello, stranger !” 

“ Hello, yourself ! Who are you ?” 

“ No objection to tell, but it is quite a 
long story. Let us sit down under that 
apple-tree. I am awful tired — just counted 
no less than twenty miles of rails. Am plum 
worn out ; and if you keep any grub about 
this here camp of yours, ITl just invite my- 
self for a social bite.” 

I should smile, if you don’t just strike 
it rich. You want to understand that this 
is the regular tramp’s paradise. I have eaten 
my fill, and my pockets are overflowing with 
chunks of bread, sausage, cheese, and ham. 


8 


Among the Tramps. 


Help yourself, old boy ; and when you get 
through we’ll compare notes for better ac- 
quaintance. I’ll hear your story, and you’ll 
hear mine. But here is some more com- 
pany — two of them, sure enough. Wonder 
who they may be. Great Jehominy * if that 
ain’t my old farmer-boss, Jake Trueheart, 
for whom I used to work years ago ! But 
how changed he is! Hello, Jake! good old 
fellow, how are the folks? Where, in Heav- 
en’s name, do you come from ? Have you 
turned tramp too?” 

Great Scott ! Pat Shorty, is that you ? 
Mighty glad to meet you, to be sure. You 
hardly ever expected to find me in such a 
company, did you? Nor me neither, you 
bet. Since you are here, I begin to feel a 
little more at home. I’ll tell you later what 
happened with me and my once so happy 
home, and all you want to know ; it is a sad 
story, I tell you. But what am I doing 
here ? Come, allow me to introduce to you 
my friend Professor Trump — and I tell you 


Among the Tramps. 


9 


he is just all that his name implies. I met 
him about two weeks ago, and have, for a 
fact, learned more from him in a few days 
than I had ever known before, and I thought 
myself a pretty good scholar. Oh, you’ll 
learn to know and admire him right off, I 
am sure. By the bye, that little Dutch town 
back of the mill is a daisy, I bet you. Pro- 
fessor and myself just went through a couple 
of streets, and look here what we’ve got ; 
any amount of victuals, a whole tin bucket 
full of beer, a flask of applejack, and fruits 
of all kinds, besides a pocketful of pipes 
for an after-supper quiet smoke. But who 
is yonder fellow with the wonderful coyote 
appetite ?” 

“Ask him yourself, Jake ; he was so tired 
and hungry that, like the Scotch laddie, 
‘he dinna choose to tell,’ and, having had 
plenty myself, I let him quietly masticate, 
without boring him with further inquiries.” 

“ Oh, never mind, boys ; my name is Slim 
Jim. We’ll get better acquainted pretty 


lo Among the Tramps. 

soon and, with your permission, I will tell 
you more as soon as I get through eating, 
upon condition that every one present shall 
give us in turn something of a biographical 
sketch of his experience with the world.” 

“Agreed all around,” answered Jake; 
“ and if you talk as well as you eat, old 
boy, I bet that yours will be a treat. Pro- 
fessor, suppose we start a fire ; you have 
some sugar left, and a warm grog would not 
be amiss to drive away malaria. This is a 
delightful night, without doubt, but it might 
turn slightly cool towards morning.” 

This conversation took place in an old 
orchard behind the mill on the western 
limits of a small Illinois town, not very far 
from the Mississippi River. A bright fire 
was soon in full blaze ; and the four cronies, 
all more or less the worse for wear, having 
satisfied the several wants of their stomachs, 
squatted down in varied attitudes, lazily 
contemplating the bright flames and smok- 
ing their short pipes, while the moon was 


Among the Tramps. 


TI 


slowly hiding behind the dense foliage of a 
clump of willow trees. 

The one that had been called Professor 
was the first to break the silence, by ex- 
claiming : 

“ Pat Shorty, a little while ago, as you 
were crossing the branch yonder, I heard 
you state to the new-comer. Slim Jim, that 
this is the tramp’s paradise. Will you 
please explain what you mean by that ?” 

Look here. Professor,” replied Pat, I’ll 
tell you. You don’t seem to be as well ac- 
quainted around these diggings as I am. 
This is the boss place for us, for several im- 
portant reasons. . First, the entire police force 
of this town consists of a lazy, one-armed, 
slow coach. Grand Army man, who would not 
arrest a tramp if he could, and could not if 
he would. Second, since twenty-eight years 
no one else but barkeepers were ever elected 
justices of the peace or police-magistrates 
in this place ; and they are only too glad 
when no official duties demand their atten- 


12 


Among the Tramps. 


tion. Third, the town is perfectly alive 
with widows. There are no less than eight of 
them in the two blocks that lead from the 
depot ; and, as you are well aware, a woman 
is always flattered by the love even of a 
beggar in rags. We just pretend to admire 
them immensely, which never fails to catch 
them. Some are young, and some are old ; 
some are wealthy, and some are poor. Most 
of them are poor ; and, the poorer they are, 
the more charitable you will find them. One 
of them is quite young and very good-look- 
ing. She lives with her father, a wealthy 
capitalist, that owns five or six big farms. 
She draws a large pension from the govern- 
ment for having married a man who had 
been in the army, and died a few years later 
from the jim-jams. I’d like to kiss her, all 
the same. But she is not quite as generous 
with us as the government has been with 
her. Fourth, all these little women are evi- 
dently good Lutherans, for they all rather 
preach than hear the mass ; but, unlike the 


Among the Tra7nps. 


13 


clergyman, they regularly give you some- 
thing instead of collecting after sermon. It 
does me good sometimes to listen to their 
kind remonstrances, while, probably, to 
soothe my susceptible feelings, they carefully 
prepare me a couple of monster sandwiches, 
nicely wrapped up in old newspapers. Like 
Lord Disraeli, of all those whom I have 
known, I chiefly remember those who forgot 
themselves, most specially an old one who 
once made the unexpected attempt to tickle 
my sensibilities with the bald-headed end of 
a broom. It is astonishing how much more 
demonstrative w'omen become with age. 
The young ones are modest and reserved 
enough, but some seem to wear petticoats 
simply lest they should be mistaken for 
males. But I digress from the subject. A 
further potent reason in favor of this town 
is the fact that the brewer and the distiller 
nearly always have some sort of a job for a 
tramp or two, and are not as chary ot their 
samples as your common cigar or whiskey 


14 


Among the Tramps. 


drummer. Butchers, hog-dealers, and sau- 
sage-makers form here the bulk of the board 
of education, but richly compensate for that 
pardonable sin by keeping whole strings of 
smoked tongues and sausages in convenient 
reach of open windows. And last, but not 
least, the good old miller, who planted this 
orchard, always forgets to gather his apples 
until we are about through with them, and I 
have got an idea that he does it on pur- 
pose. God bless him for it, anyhow. 

“ If you want a better tramp’s paradise 
than this, you must certainly be pretty hard 
to suit. For my part, I don’t. 

“And now, friends, let Slim Jim fill his 
pipe and begin his promised narration, after 
which each one of us may follow suit as be 
fore agreed.” 


Among the Tramps. 


15 


SLIM JIM’S STORY. 

I AM A TRAMP. 

“ I AM a tramp by war necessity and for 
revenue only, thereby uniting in my plat- 
form both extreme planks of the Republi- 
can and of the Democratic creeds. 

“ Solomon was born a king and a wise 
man ; I was born a tramp and a fool. 

“ What is the inherent difference between 
a king and a tramp ? Good kings are very 
scarce — much scarcer even than good tramps. 
Bad kings have often done more harm in 
one hour than any bad tramp in a whole 
lifetime. Plain as daylight, the scale is in 
favor of tramps. I am a tramp. 

“ Where are kings and tramps before their 
birth } Where are they after their death ? 
While they live, their story is short. The 
one is clad in silks, jewels, and gold ; the 


1 6 Among the Tramps. 

other in dirty rags. The one is worshipped, 
honored, fed upon selected bits ; the other 
is kicked about, despised, and fed upon re- 
jected crumbs. Both are more feared than 
loved. Still there are more sighs, more 
tears, more of abject misery in the making 
of a single tassel of the king’s mantle than 
in the whole suits of a dozen tramps. 

“ Unless my religion is wrong, the his- 
tory of the world a lie, and the philosophers 
and poets all a set of abused fools, I cannot 
hesitate for a single instant between a king 
and a tramp. I am a tramp. 

“ I said that I was born a fool ; so every- 
body says of me, and it may be true. I 
don’t deny it. Who is truly wise but he 
who acknowledges himself a fool? He who 
calls himself wise is a fool ; he that calls him- 
self a fool is wise. That being the case, I 
am in fact no longer a fool, but a wise man, 
after all. 

“ The moral of which is : If you want to 
appear wise, call yourself a fool. You won’t 


Among the Tramps. 


17 


hit very far from the mark, anyhow; but 
you may agreeably surprise some by show- 
ing yourself actually wiser than they ever 
expected you to be. If you want in earnest 
to be wise, learn first to know that you are 
a fool. If you want to be the greatest, 
learn to be the smallest. I am a tramp. 

“ Other people work, trade, bargain, accu- 
mulate, speculate, own houses, lands, horses, 
cattle, and crops — and what else? But I 
don’t ; I own nothing. I am a tramp.” 

WORK A SLAVERY. 

“ I do not like to work, I must confess ; 
work was a bad invention. Mules alone 
ought to work. Work is merely a kind of 
disguised slavery, anyhow ; and unequally 
distributed, at that. I, a free-born Ameri- 
can citizen, work ? No. I am a tramp. 

Some people affect to believe that slav- 
ery was abolished. On paper? Yes. In 
fact? No. On the contrary, there is just 
a little more of it. There has been only a 


1 8 Among the Tramps. 

change of owners on one side, and the addi- 
tion of millions of white slaves on the other. 

“The kings of finance, the monopolists, 
the protected barons, the bold robbers of 
Wall Street, and such like, that neither spin 
nor toil, but still amass millions because 
millions toil for them, are they not actu- 
ally and de facto slaveowners ? 

“Are not all our workingmen compelled 
to work, either to fill a contract, or to pay 
old or new debts, or to support families, or 
for a living ? Is not every form of compuh 
sory labor a slavery ? 

“ What difference does it make if the 
slave knows his owner or not ? Or if the 
owner ever sees his slave or not ? What 
difference does it make if the slave works 
for one or two masters, or for a corpora- 
ton, or for the State, county, township, 
school, city, town, village, pauper, road, or 
bridge taxes? And compulsory work is 
slavery. 

“ A debtor is a slave to the extent of the 


Among the Tramps. 


19 


interest he must work out regularly. Every 
one is a slave in proportion to the taxes, in- 
terest, or labor he must furnish. But the 
pill is carefully sugar-coated by means of 
the so-called tariff on foreign goods. If he 
had to face the tax-gatherer at every step, 
the slave might revolt. 

“ Since the war, every workingman in the 
land is compelled, by law, to work so many 
hours every day for the benefit of certain 
protected masters, that could not thrive 
otherwise — so they say. Thus, protected 
capitalists have been actually made legal 
slave-owners. Whoever buys anything, ex- 
cept, perhaps, diamonds, silks, attar of roses, 
and such absolute necessaries of life, is re- 
quired to contribute from fifty cents to one 
dollar, or even more, for every dollar’s worth 
he purchases, to help some smart Yankee to 
make a living. This is your modern Social- 
ism, barring the name. 

The more the slave works, the richer his 


20 Among the Tramps. 

master ; the richer the master, the poorer 
the slave. 

It is odd, it is unjust, but absolutely true. 
Capital builds factories and employs hands, 
because it pays, or it is expected to pay. 
The more the hands work, the more they 
produce ; the more they produce, the 
cheaper the goods ; the cheaper the goods, 
the lower the wages, until work is suspended 
and the slave is starving. So with railroads , 
the more are built, the livelier the competi- 
tion, the lower the rates, the lower the 
wages — and the slave goes begging. 

If, without option, I have to labor for 
some one else, be it a lord, a corporation, 
or a State, and receive only a part of the 
benefit of my labor, the bulk going to others, 
am I not a slave ? 

Having yet my choice of callings be- 
tweenthat of slave and that of slave-owner, 
I shall not be found among the first class, 
you bet. I, a man made after God’s image, 
work as a slave? No. I am a tramp. 


Among the Tramps. 21 

I used to work hard and faithfully once, 
and, like others, toiled with all my might and 
energy, to earn what they called an honest 
penny ; but I quit. I found that the penny 
I earned was not mine ; at least, I was not 
allowed to keep it. There were always 
twenty hands stretched out to steal it from 
me. 

“ Between bribery and robbery, how could 
anything remain ? I had to do the bribing ; 
others attended to the robbing — both, again, 
measures of war necessity, you know. 

I had to bribe my boss by buying my 
necessaries at his store, for which he was 
so thankful that he cheated me in weight, 
measure, or quality of the goods. I looked 
around , my co-workmen and associates were 
receiving the same treatment and meekly 
smiling to the boss. I tried to smile too ; 
but I hardly believe that I made much of a 
success of it. 

I had to bribe the foreman with a good 
cigar or a couple of drinks every time I met 


22 


Among the Tramps. 


him of an evening, in order to keep on his 
sunny side. Lord, how dry he was ! 

“ I had to bribe my boarding-house tyrant 
to keep him from growling and grumbling 
when I happened to come late at meals or 
at night, and still he grumbled and growled. 

“ I had to bribe the waiters in order to 
get once in a while a fair piece of pie. 

“To tell the truth, those I did not bribe 
robbed me, and those I did bribe robbed me, 
too. 

“ I quit bribing, and of course got dis- 
charged. Both boss and foreman began at 
once to discover several defects about me, 
and astonishingly agreed in complaining 
about irregularities on my part ; made sev- 
eral deductions from my last pay ; and, after 
I had settled all my bills, I turned my back 
upon civilization with a pretty light satchel, 
a sour feeling around my heart, and sixty- 
five cents in my pocket. They quit robbing 
me — when I had nothing left — for which I 
ought to be thankful, I presume. I swore I 


Among the Tramps. 


23 


would not work any more, and I kept my 
word. I am a tramp.” 

FOLLY OF ACCUMULATIONS. 

“ I do not like accumulations. Everything 
tastes as well out of a small bunch as out of 
a big heap. The wild cherries and black- 
berries, upon which we feed at times, are 
small; if they were the size of pumpkins, 
would they taste any better ? A small oyster- 
canful of stale beer will do for the thirst 
just as well as a tubful, provided it is often 
refilled. I am not extravagant, you see. I 
am a tramp. 

“ When I see our gilded youth accumulating 
millions without ever working a single stroke, 
building marble palaces, while those that 
work and earn for them sleep in rotten 
shanties, I say to myself : ‘ Go it, boys, while 
you are young. The day of reckoning will 
come, and is probably nearer than you dream. 
The day will come when that capital of which 
you are so proud, and which is now so ar- 


24 


Among the Tramps, 


rogantly lording it over labor and laborers, 
will be put to chains and made to be the 
slave of labor. The day will come when the 
golden calf that you all so reverently wor- 
ship will be overthrown and destroyed.’ 

“ The more laws you enact in favor of 
capital, the more weights you add upon the 
safety-valve, the sooner that day will come. 

“ Accumulations of capital, like accumula- 
tions of landed estates, are equally dangerous 
to the human family, and will soon be relics 
of the past. You mind my word. I am a 
tramp. 

“ My father once accumulated nearly a 
hundred thousand dollars ; that was my ruin. 
He had nothing else but accumulation on the 
brain, and forgot entirely both a devoted 
wife and his only child. 

“ Neglected and abused, poor mother died 
of a broken heart. The lid of her coffin was 
hardly screwed down tight when I was put 
into the care of strange hands, sent to school, 
and given twenty-five cents pocket-money a 


Among the Tramps. 25 

week. That made me mad. I do not know 
but I am mad yet. 

I used to see father once or twice a year. 
He sometimes gave me half a dollar, some- 
times a quarter, oftener nothing. He regu- 
larly impressed upon me what a great thing 
it was to save and accumulate in time, so as 
to have something in old age. I could not 
see it in that light, but said nothing. I 
often thought how different the world might 
have been to nie if he had taken me once 
to Niagara Falls, or to the Catskills, or on a 
boat-excursion, or to some country fair, or 
to some concert, if only in a beer-garden — 
anywhere, where I could be for a single day 
with him, and get acquainted with him. But 
that would have cost some money or some 
inconvenience, and he had no time either ; 
he must earn and accumulate. When he 
died, I was seventeen years old. I did not 
cry ; I never liked the old miser. Six years 
later, I was through with every cent his 
executor left me. I had a grand old time of 


26 


Among the Tramps, 


it ; and, candidly, I do not regret it at all, 
queer as it may sound. I am a tramp. 

Why accumulate riches to see your heirs 
watching curiously your every step and 
praying every minute — not even always in 
whispers — that you might soon depart?” 

AN IDYLL. 

“ The executor of my father’s will was a 
preacher, a strict sectarian, with stern Calvin- 
istic notions. A cold, heartless sort of a 
Christian, he governed his scanty flock with 
a steel-plated iron rod. Somehow, he was 
always executor, administrator, or guardian 
of every valuable estate within twenty miles 
around — a thing I never could account for. 
He had more notes and mortgages in his 
safe, than smiles upon his face during an 
entire year. 

I was taken to his house, and he under- 
took to teach and train me according to the 
most severe Christian discipline. I took it 
all in, without the least murmur, and ac- 


Among the Tramps. 


27 


cepted the situation so cheerfully that I 
staid at his place until I came of age. I 
kneeled down with the others at family pray- 
ers, and was soon becoming an exemplary 
Christian. My guardian never refused me 
any money if I wanted some, but I hardly 
ever cared for any. I stayed nearly always 
at home — a beautiful place on a high, partly 
wooded hill, just in the suburbs of the city, 
half farm, half pleasure-grounds. 

The secret reason of my extraordinary 
conduct is easily told. My guardian had a 
jewel of a daughter — a veritable angel among 
mortals — the exact opposite of her father. 

“ Two years my junior, she was not what 
you might call a beauty, but she was pretty, 
and merry as a lark. Her face was beaming 
with goodness and smiles. She was literally 
singing from morning till night. I lived 
four years in that house, and never saw her 
but smiling. Once, after a scolding from 
her father, I surprised her crying. She looked 
at me smiling, as ever, although the tears 


28 


Among the Tramps. 


were still trickling down her cheeks. I shall 
never forget that picture. It haunts me in 
my dreams. Those beautiful black eyes, 
shining and twinkling like two fiery dia- 
monds. Her mother had departed this life 
several years before. A Southern woman, 
she had probably been frozen to death by 
that icicle of a preacher. No allusion was ever 
made to the mother, but the daughter had 
about everything her own way. She was in 
that house like a sunbeam in a dark prison 
cell, like a fresh, wild rose peeping out of a 
bunch of horse-weeds. 

“ I began to wake up ; I began to live. A 
feeling of ineffable joy pervaded my whole 
being. At first I did hardly know where it 
came from. I did not know myself any 
more. Everything I looked at — the clouds, 
the trees, the grass, the chicks, the ducks, 
and the geese— for the first time in my life 
appeared so astonishingly beautiful ! Invol- 
untarily, a sentiment of religious thankfulness 
began to creep up under my vest. I loved 


Among the Tramps. 


29 


everything and everybody. By and by I 
caught myself following my sunbeam like a 
shadow. I helped my goddess in the garden, 
in the orchard, in the dairy — everywhere. 
Whenever I hurried to assist her, she turned 
her face to me with that heavenly smile of 
hers ; and I felt so supremely happy ! We 
drove, rode, walked, worked, and sang to- 
gether ; but our sweetest moments were 
passed under an old crab-tree west of the or- 
chard, where we met every afternoon when 
the weather allowed. There we exchanged 
our youthful experiences, our future hopes, 
full of our mutual love, but never daring 
even to whisper of it, as if afraid to tread 
upon sacred ground.” 

A preacher’s faith. 

“Thus passed nearly four years of hea- 
venly bliss. They seemed to me but a few 
months, when, on the eve of my majority, 
my guardian summoned me to his study. 

“ ‘ Young man,’ began he, ‘ you are twenty- 


30 


Among the Tramps. 


one years old to-morrow. I shall now render 
my account and deliver the property in- 
trusted to my care. And you’ll now have to 
go out in the world and look for yourself. 
You will therefore pack up all your things 
and be ready at five o’clock to-morrow morn- 
ing to leave this house forever. We shall 
first drive to the county-seat, where we shall 
settle before the probate judge, and then it 
is for you to decide which way you choose 
to go.’ 

“ I was dumfounded ; the earth seemed to 
vanish under my feet. I did murmur some- 
thing of no hurry about settlement, etc., 
when old Sanctimony, standing up and 
stretching himself at full length, spoke in 
most severe terms: ^ Young man, I have 
told you time and again that our duties 
must always be punctually and literally ful- 
filled, without the least evasion or tergiver- 
sation. To-morrow is the day when I must 
render my account, to-morrow is the day 
when my guardianship ceases, to-morrow the 


Among the Tramps, 


31 


law makes you your own master. What else 
do you want ?’ 

The last five words seemed to give me 
courage. Yes, there was something else I 
wanted, more valuable to me than the whole 
world could ever be. I began, slowly and 
hesitatingly at -first, soon somewhat bolder, 
until I grew perfectly eloquent, and even 
brilliant, confessing my humble and thus far 
still unspoken love for his adorable daugh- 
ter, and asking him in the name of her and 
my future happiness, in the name of my de- 
ceased parents, whom he had known, in the 
name of God, whose servant he was, to per- 
mit and bless our union. ‘ I presume I was 
talking loud enough to be heard by the en- 
tire household. 

“ The warmer I spoke, the colder he seemed 
to grow. When I had finished, he remained 
motionless as a statue for fully five minutes, 
his cold, steel-gray eyes of a serpent seeming 
to bore through to the very bottom of my soul. 

‘ Young man,’ said he at last, ‘ I have my 


32 


Among the Tramps. 


doubts about the orthodoxy of your relig- 
ious views. I presume, from your last re- 
marks, that you at least acknowledge the ex- 
istence of an almighty God ; you have also 
previously professed a belief in the bloody 
atonement of Christ. But this is by far not 
sufficient, in my mind ; a Christian’s faith 
extends much farther. Tell me the truth now. 
Do you, or do you not believe in a devil, 
in hell, and in the eternal damnation of the 
wicked ?’ 

I had to acknowledge that I did not 
know, nor had I ever given the matter much 
thought. How could I, after four years of 
paradise, even think of such a place as hell ? 

‘‘ ‘ I always suspected as much,’ replied 
the preacher, and, elevating his voice to 
the highest pitch of scorn and severity, he 
continued in thundering tones : ‘ And you 
expect, after such a confession, that a minis- 
ter of the holy Gospel could so far forget 
his duty to God and his allegiance to the 
Lord as to consent to trust the future and 


Amo7ig the Trmnps, 


33 


salvation of his only child to the hands of a 
miserable heretic and unbeliever, as you con- 
fess yourself to be? No sir, no sir, never! 
never ! never ! Whoever does not believe 
most implicity in hell and damnation shall 
never win my daughter. And, in the mean 
time, I will see that she is placed out of danger, 
and shall send her away immediately, where 
you never can find her. Besides, she is too 
dutiful a child to disobey the commands of 
her father.’ I never saw her any more. 

“ Next morning, before departing, I visited 
the old crab-tree and found a few forget-me- 
nots wrapped in a piece of crumpled paper, 
whereupon was written with pencil, ‘Thine 
forever.’ ” 


MADNESS AND DESPAIR. 

“ The drive to the county-seat was a dull 
affair, not a word being spoken on the way. 

“ I had lost all interest in what was going 
on around me. Mechanically I took the 
papers and vouchers that were handed to 


34 


Among the Tramps. 


me, signed my name without knowing what 
for, and cannot even now recollect how and 
when the preacher departed. 

“ In less than two years I had spent, gam- 
bled, and given away every cent of the for- 
tune so carefully saved by my father. That 
money seemed to be cursed ; and I enjoyed 
a secret, diabolical voluptuousness in actu- 
ally throwing it away. I would do it again 
if I had a chance. I can’t help it. I am a 
tramp. 

“ I had been to Europe, and had seen the 
world, as they say. It had not made me 
any better. I returned to America, tired 
and nearly a pauper. When I had but a 
few dollars left, I concluded to attempt to 
see what had become of my love and my 
paradise. At dusk, I sneaked carefully 
around the home of the terrible preacher 
and met Biddy, an old servant, whom I 
knew well. At my sight, her apron flew in 
her face, and she began to moan and cry 
bitterly. After much inquiry, I obtained, 


Among the Tramps. 35 

with difficulty, the crushing information 
that my love had shot herself through the 
heart, under the old crab-tree, less than a 
week before ; that a paper addressed to 
me was found at her side with only two 
words, ‘ Thine forever,’ written thereon ; 
that the old preacher had shown himself as 
hard and heartless as ever, in conducting 
the burial ceremonies in person, as if noth- 
ing unusual had happened ; and, on the 
grave of his daughter, had further publicly 
disgraced himself and the cloth in loudly 
proclaiming that the blood of his child 
rested upon the head of the author of an in- 
famous book entitled, ^ Is Life Worth Liv- 
ing?" found in his daughter’s room; and 
that on the day of judgment he would de- 
mand the blood of his child from that im- 
pious author. Just like him. 

“ For three days and three nights I wan- 
dered, in my endless misery, through the 
woods of the country, without knowing 
what I was doing. Hundreds of times the 


36 


Among the Tramps. 


idea of suicide suggested itself ; hundreds of 
times I rejected it as too cowardly and un- 
worthy of a man. What right had I to seek 
rest, after shamefully abandoning my love to 
her sad fate ? Why had I squandered my 
fortune and my best years in madness? 
Why had I not returned before and stran- 
gled the old devil with my own hands ? 

watched a whole night at his door, 
with the firm intention of killing him, and 
of tearing him to pieces with my teeth. I 
was very sick. At early dawn some one 
opened the door ; I sprang up like a tiger. 
It was Biddy. She saw that I was crazed 
by grief, tried to comfort me, and began to 
cry. I softened and ran away to the woods. 
How long I wandered, I do not know. 

“ One morning the thought struck me 
that work was said to be the greatest com- 
forter of mankind, and thus I went to work 
for a change, I, that had not worked for 
ever so long, and never for a living, and — 
well, I have told you already with what results. 


Among the Tramps. 


37 


“Work did not cure me, but in some 
manner I learned to forget; it lulled my 
poor heart to sleep. O forgetfulness, sleep, 
rest, death, total annihilation ! Can there be 
a more heavenly comfort? Nirvana! Nir- 
vana ! thou art the only bliss. 

“ Maybe you don’t like that kind of phi- 
losophy? I can’t help it. I am a tramp. 

SPECULATION. 

“ I hate speculation and speculators. 
Speculation is but a species of gambling, 
and I have seen enough of that in my time. 
There is no honest gambling, except among 
the losers, and that not always. To be a 
successful gambler or speculator, one must 
know how to shuffle, have his sleeves full of 
additional trumps, know all the dirty tricks 
of the trade, use only those his opponent 
overlooks, have a silent partner quietly 
looking into his opponent’s hand ; cheat, 
wrong, and defraud a hundred times an hour 


38 Among the Tramps. 

with the most unconcerned and innocent 
face in the world. 

“ If you are a born deceiver, speculate ; if 
you have one cent’s worth of honesty left, 
leave speculation to others less lucky than 
yourself. 

“ I once knew a man universally respected 
for his honesty and uprightness. He was in 
good circumstances, a model citizen, raised 
by the rules of Franklin and Jefferson, had a 
paying interest in a first-class factory (a reg- 
ular little gold-mine, you might say), a de- 
lightful home of his own, a perfect love of a 
wife, a bevy of charming children, (the envy 
of any mortal), a farm stocked with the best 
breeds ; an old, wealthy father, whose pet he 
was, and who would have given his very last 
cent for him. He was also a leading man in 
the church and the master-spirit of several 
benevolent societies. The demon of Money- 
making got hold of him and never lost his 
grip. His children had to peddle milk, but- 
ter, and garden-truck, which they did cheer- 


Among the Tramps. 


39 


fully enough, God knows. His teams had to 
haul material for the builders and to retail 
fire-wood and coal all over the city; but that 
was not enough. He began to speculate in 
futures; a trifling margin brought him a 
profit of ten thousand dollars ; that was his 
death. From that day he was gone. He 
speculated, lost and speculated again, and 
borrowed to speculate, until he thought he 
could borrow no more. 

“ They found him one day, dead and 
bleeding in his room, his smoking, double- 
barrelled gun by his side, only witness of his 
last breath. 

‘‘ It is charitably supposed that, while 
meditating suicide and examining his gun 
for sinister purposes, the same was acci- 
dently discharged, killing him on the spot. 
The mere contemplation of evil is too often 
its very messenger. 

It would be too cruel to suppose that he 
could, in his blind speculation craze, alto- 
gether forget a devoted wife, worshipping 


40 


Among the Tramps. 


children, his snow-haired father bent under 
the weight of years, his jolly partners, and 
hundreds of friends, preferring to leave all 
without even a parting word, because a vile 
speculation had not been successful. 

Hundreds, thousands of speculators, less 
deserving, perhaps, meet as sad a fate or die 
in poor-houses or penitentiaries. 

“ I hate the very name of speculation. I 
am a tramp.” 


RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 


I own neither land nor houses, nor any 
other property. Many land-owners have 
nothing but trouble and contention to keep 
possession of what they love to call their 
own. It is often nothing but a most dis- 
gusting grab-game, where the so-called right- 
ful owner is usually cleaned out. General 
Sutter owned the best part of California 
when gold was discovered, and died a pau- 
per. He was calmly deprived of his prop- 
erty in the due course of the law, as they 


\ 


V 

I 




Among the Tramps. 


41 


mildly call it in legal lore. Smart lawyers 
out-generaled the general. 

“ ‘ The earth belongs to the Lord.’ 
Who pretends to own the land ? Can any 
one show a clear title from the original 
owner? Who first obtained a quit-claim 
deed from Jehovah?” 

“ Evidently, some one first took possession 
of a piece of ground and held it until some- 
body else drove him away. The whites 
drove the Indians, and thus acquired title. 
To-day Uncle Sam is doing still the same, 
with a big pretence at purchase. We take 
their lands and give them, in exchange, shod- 
dy goods and rotten provisions. They kick 
at times and run off to hunt and plunder, 
which gives us a good excuse to send our 
soldiers to kill them — the old, genuine, and 
cheap way of obtaining a clear title. Modern 
society requires that appearances be care- 
fully observed. 

“ Such claims we bought, or pretended to 
buy, from England, France, Spain, and Mex- 


42 Among the Tramps. 

ico ; and thus Uncle Sam— that is, the nation 
— became the recognized owner. By what 
right or sleight-of-hand performance the 
lands were afterwards subdivided, given, or 
deeded away, is not very clear to me, and 
never will be. Are they not the nation’s 
yet ? What other title could it convey, but 
what it had received — that of a temporary 
possession ? Every owner is, in fact, but a 
tenant of the nation. 

We come into this world naked and 
helpless. Our first natural wants are air, 
water, and land ; air to respire, water to drink 
and wash in ; land to stand or lie upon, to 
furnish aliments while we live and a grave 
when we die. The mere impossibility of the 
thing has only thus far kept ingenious rob- 
bers from claiming fee-simple and possession 
of the air. Pirates at times claimed pretty 
much all the valuable water-courses with the 
ocean ; but there were too many of them, and 
the boundaries between claimants on the 
high seas were not easily marked, so it was 


Among the Tramps, 


43 


agreed, as a matter of compromise, to leave 
the ocean free for all, reserving certain shore 
rights. But land has to this day remained 
the special covetous aim of all conquerors, 
robbers, and grabbers. 

As a matter of principle, the State, in 
reserving the right of eminent domain to 
override any title, when public interest re- 
quires it, with or without compensation, 
opens the road for a general overthrow of 
individual property and a return to the funda- 
mental idea of national ownership. 

Here is a dilemma, however , two laborors 
having saved five hundred dollars each, 
invest their capital in real estate at current 
prices in two of our numerous incipient cities, 
individually. In the subsequent lottery of 
life, one of these cities improves astonishingly, 
and so does the investment. The other city 
goes down, outflanked by a booming rival or 
killed by a hostile railroad combination ; is 
abandoned, turned to weeds and wilderness, 
etc., and the investment is a total loss. In the 


44 


Among the Traffips. 


one case they say the gain, or what they call 
the ‘ unearned increment,’ belongs to the na- 
tion. Suppose it does. If the nation claims 
the gain in the one case, why not also claim 
the loss in the other? If the one is right, the 
other is just also. Or, is the nation, like 
certain world-benefactors and country-saviors, 
anxious to share with the rich only, but not 
with the poor? Who is going to share with 
the one that lost his entire investment ? He 
can as well divide with me ; I have nothing. 
Neither of us will get too much. 

I enjoy my share of the land every time 
I stretch myself in the grass ; and, for certain 
odoriferous reasons, not of my choice, they 
will gladly — yes, most gladly — give me my 
full share when I die. Then the nation may 
deed me, with six feet of ground, to some 
truck-gardener; I don’t care. No matter to 
me whether I be called to impart flavor to 
turnips or onions, or to celery and coriander. 
I am a tramp.” 


Among the Tramps, 


45 


MY POLITICAL IDEAL. 

“ I am a Republican at heart, and do love 
the Republican party. Its notions and 
principles come nearest to mine. Before its 
advent, there was hardly a single tramp in 
the land ; since then we have grown, pros- 
pered and multiplied above all expectations. 

The Republican party, in every great 
emergency, finds and uses measures of ne- 
cessity. We do the same. 

“ It is not over-mindful of the rights of 
property * and we loyally follow its example. 

“ It lives sometimes upon plunder ; so do 
we. 

It is in favor of subsidies, bounties, and 
pensions ; so are we. But it does not go 
quite far enough. Not only sailors and sol- 
diers, but every poor man and every tramp 
ought to be pensioned. Don’t smile so 
loud ; it is coming slowly, but surely. Do 
you suppose that we created the Grand 


46 Among the Tramps. 

Army of R. and the Knights -of L. for noth- 
ing? 

“ Since we are all on the take, pray, is a 
soldier or a sailor truly better or more useful 
than a tramp or a farmer, a butcher, a baker 
or any other man? Is the man that shoots 
and kills, eats and destroys, serving his coun- 
try better than he that toils and produces, cre- 
ates and preserves food, provisions, animals, 
and habitations for the children of men? 
Why, of course. According to the morals of 
the day, and of this, our very Christian, civili- 
zation, he that kills and maims as many of 
his brethren as he possibly can, destroys 
their crops, burns their homes and cities, is 
the only true. Simon-pure savior of his 
country, and, as such, entitled, not only to 
elongated pensions and fat offices, but to 
the eternal gratitude of everybody else — and 
don’t you forget it ; and, after him, likewise 
his children, and perhaps his phenomenally 
long-lived widow. While, he that is toiling 
to feed, nurse, clothe, house, and educate the 


Among the Traffics. 


47 


whole nation, and also to earn those very 
pensions to the tune of eighty millions of 
dollars a year, may be maimed for life or 
killed by machinery, by accidents of all 
kinds — by rail, by water, by horse, mule, or 
otherwise, or entirely ruined in his pacific 
occupations , nobody would ever dream of 
giving him even a single word of commen- 
dation. But we are Christians, you know, 
and, divine blood-spilling being the founda- 
tion of fashionable Christianity, why should 
not the spilling of our brethren’s blood re- 
ceive a proportionate recognition ? 

“ And the farmers, the peasants, the boors 
are, in all countries of the world, blind, pa- 
tient oxen, but make splendid voting cattle 
to help support the most absurd measures, 
even if it cuts their own throats. 

We tramps, that neither work nor fight, 
are evidently entitled to first seats in the 
pension-show ; for neither the crimes of 
the one class nor the virtues and ignorance 
of the other can be put at our door. We 


48 


Among the Tramps, 


hold the just middle between the two ex- 
tremes ; we are the hub of humanity, and 
the inside of the hub, you know, is the 
proper part of the wheel, where the greas- 
ing is always in order. 

“ There ought, therefore, to be a national 
soup-bureau and free-lunch establishment at 
every post-office. Our surplus revenue is 
such that we can easily afford it. There 
are always enough fools in the land, work- 
ing, saving, and accumulating ; and the rev- 
enues are not apt to grow less, as long as 
Randall and his chums stick to our side. 

“As a true Republican, I am in favor of 
high tariff and heavy taxes upon all kinds 
of property ; the more, the merrier. I have 
no property and, can easily stand it. Those 
that own property should be only too glad 
and willing to pay for its enjoyment. 
They want to be protected : let them pay 
for it. The grand old party of moral ideas 
has done noble things in the past ; its sub- 
lime idea of paternity must be further ex- 


Among the Tramps. 


49 


tended and amplified. Nobody should be 
compelled to work to earn a living. If the 
Nation with the big N cannot even give us 
a living, what has it got that big N for? 
The Nation owes us a living. Let those 
only work that must work for their pleasure 
or for their health. 

“ It was a splendid idea, in Grant’s time, 
to make distillers put up money to run the 
elections. They were making too much 
money, anyhow, since we had educated one 
million of soldiers to the taste of bourbon 
and created quite a demand for the article. 
Every distillery and brewery in the land 
ought to be confiscated and run by and for 
the government. Most of the work is done 
by machinery, and pensioners could easily 
superintend the establishments. I know 
many tramps willing to serve their country 
in accepting such situations, that are emi- 
nently qualified and first-class judges of beer 
and liquors. Another splendid idea was 
that of Garfield, to bleed the Star-route con- 


50 


Among the Tramps, 


tractors for the benefit of the party. Alas, 
that such great men are disappearing so fast ! 
But the finest trick of all was that of Ward 
& Grant, catching sixteen millions of dol- 
lars so smoothly and so easily. I admire 
the boys ; they had a good training, you see. 

Who would not agree with that admira- 
ble Senator lately exclaiming : ‘ If I had my 
way about it, I would put the manufactur- 
ers of Pennsylvania under the fire, and fry 
all the fat out of them.’ A crown of laurel 
to the brave ! If I had my way, I would be 
a Doctor Sangrado in politics. Sangrado, 
an eminent physician, believed in bleeding 
his patients for all possible ills and diseases. 
He made splendid cures — at least, so he 
bragged ; and those patients that did not 
recover right away, died very soon, which 
was, to say the least, very lucky — much 
better at any rate, than a long suffering or a 
lingering illness, since they had to die some 
day or another anyhow. Such principles 
jipplied to politics would obtain a3tonishing 


Among the Tramps. 


51 


results and accelerate the certainty of the 
‘survival of the fittest/ I would make 
every tramp tax-gatherer, with unlimited dis- 
cretionary powers ; and you could see, ere 
long, every proprietor willing either to turn 
a tramp himself or to share his wealth with 
everybody else, — realizing at last the uni- 
versal brotherhood of men and the millen- 
nium on earth. 

“ My ideas may seem at first slightly ad- 
vanced, but they are only the natural conse- 
quences of my party’s policy. Do we not 
already tax the whole country for the bene- 
fit of certain industries, for pensions, sub- 
sidies, and the like ? Some call this rank 
Socialism. Well, what of it? We repub- 
licans will all be Socialists in a few years. 
Pray, what are your immense corporations, 
stock companies, gigantic combines, pools, 
and trust of all kinds, but Socialism of the 
worst type, because created and worked by 
the few to rob the many? What splendid 
lessons you are teaching us tramps! If we 


52 


Among the T7'amps. 


do not all turn Socialists in less than no 
time, it is surely not your fault. Why 
not let the good work go on? And why 
should we aim to perpetuate the ^ grand old 
party ’ in power, unless to reap the promised 
fruits? In the language of the immortal 
Texan, ‘What are we here for, anyhow?’ 

“ Free whiskey for us, and the millionaires 
in the frying-pan! Hurrah! If you don’t 
see the good times coming, I can’t help it. 
I see it all plain enough. I am a tramp. 

“ Paternal government. Protection, pen- 
sions, combinations, trusts, free lunch, free 
whiskey, and free beer for all, are tenets 
good enough for me, for the negroes, and 
even for the Chinese. In fact, I cannot see 
why the Chinese has not as much right to 
this country as the Celt, the Gaul, the 
Saxon, the Hun, the Slav, the Jew, the Turk, 
the negro, or the Indian. It is an everlast- 
ing shame to nurse a prejudice against him 
merely because he is more thrifty and sav- 
ing than the German or the Scotch, and pre- 


Among the Trarnps. 53 

fers opium to beer or whiskey. A main ob- 
jection to him is that he eats rats, which 
should be a strong reason to keep him here, 
as common-sense might suggest ; but per- 
haps that creates a dangerous competition 
to our large manufactories of steel traps and 
of ‘ Rough on Rats,’ in which case, of course, 
the ‘ business interests ’ of the nation should 
take first place, and we should protect the 
rats in order to create a ‘ home market ’ for 
those important products (rat-traps and 
‘ Rough on Rats ’), and thus assist ‘ infant 
industries’ and protect ^American labor’!” 

MY RELIGION. 

“ Queer as it may sound, I am a fire and 
sun worshipper — a follower of that most an- 
cient and rational of human creeds, always 
seeking, asking, and praying for lights more 
lights and further light. 

“ When I look at the flame of our usual 
camp-fires, I involuntarily ask myself : What. 


54 


Among the Tramps, 


is it ? What is fire ? What is light ? In all 
possible forms and uses we see and meet 
them every day ; but their true essence re- 
mains a mystery. 

Watch this closely. I’ll hold a stick or a 
piece of paper at a distance above the fire, 
and the flame will actually leap to catch it, 
as if endowed with sight or knowledge of the 
presence of the stick or paper. Does it not 
look very much like the very picture of 
what we generally understand under the 
name of spirit? Powerful but intangible.; 
beneficent at times, but terrific in its unre- 
strained sway ; often spontaneous, alike in its 
appearance and disappearance ; in turns, full 
of active, devouring life, or dying away at a 
mere breath of wind. We do not know 
where it comes from ; we do not know where 
it goes to. 

If fire is one of the most destructive ele- 
ments, it is also the most generous and char- 
itable ; for it disseminates heat and light to 
all surrounding objects with lavish and prod- 


Among the Tramps. 55 

igal ardor, and without ever asking any re- 
turns. 

“ Whenever we wish to elevate our minds 
above our little world and its sordid con- 
tents, we see and find absolutely nothing 
else in the entire universe, but light or fire, 
facing us, in the shape of millions of unknown 
bodies, that, for accommodation, we call suns, 
moons, or stars. What else, if you please, 
fills up the heavens, above the clouds of our 
little dark globe, but light ? 

“ And, when you teach your child to pray, 
* Our Father which art in heaven,’ and that 
child lifts its artless eyes above, what else 
but light will meet his inquisitive look? 

No wonder if old humanity, in search of a 
religion, dropped in early times upon fire 
worship. We find the remnants of that an- 
cient creed, not only in Pagan temples, but in 
the most modern churches of Christian coun- 
tries and in the ceremonies of nearly all se- 
cret orders. Here Romanism and Masonry, 
otherwise deadly foes, agree most remarkably. 


56 Among the Tramps. 

Processions and perambulations from east to 
west, in imitation of the course of the sun and 
moon, are largely practised by both even to 
this day. Here you see three lights, repre- 
senting the sun, the moon, and .the master of 
the lodge, and are informed that, as the sun 
rules the day and the moon governs the 
night, so should the master govern and rule 
with equal regularity. In some orders, offi- 
cers are stationed east, south, anxi west, and 
are said to represent the sun at its rise, at 
meridan height, and at the close of the day. 
Even the sacred name of the old sun-god, 
Belus, Baal, Bal Bel, is introduced at times 
among the secret pass-words or in the names 
of mythical parties to the most secret mys- 
teries. Jubela, Jubelom (Zeus Baal, Deus 
Belus, sun-god). In some orders, two great 
luminaries or torches escort the high-priest 
or prelate. In others is found an altar, with 
pot of incense said to be burning day and 
night, or some actual repsesentation of the 
fire descending from heaven and consuming 


Among the Tramps, 


57 


offerings upon the altar. Zoroaster and the 
Parsees, and after them the Jews, the Aztecs, 
etc., worshipped on high hills, to receive the 
first rays of the rising sun. Churches and 
chapels,*with altars and burning lights, were 
from time immemorial built on the summit 
of hills. Even modern orders fail not to re- 
mind the initiated that our ancient brethren 
met on high hills. But all these ceremonies, 
religious or secret, are so mixed with biblical, 
historical, apocryphal, and other teachings, 
that the neophyte passes through them with- 
out ever dreaming that he had just witnessed 
the remnants of a worship over four thou- 
sand years of age. 

“ There are some churches in India to- 
day where the priests brag that the same 
holy fire has been kept up burning over two 
thousand years without ever going out, and 
there are no good reasons to doubt it. 
The old Romans had the institution of the 
vestals, whose principal duty was to keep 
the holy fire burning. In every Greek and 


Among the Tramps. 


sS 

Catholic church to this day the same old 
Pagan custom is still prevailing. To burn 
incense, light tapers and candles in day- 
time, either in the church or outside of it, 
before the shrine or holy crosses ; to place 
burning candles arpund the remains of the 
departed, to make pilgrimages with burning 
candles in hand from one chapel to another, — 
are still venerated customs in connection with 
religious ceremonies of a great many churches. 

In nearly all mountainous countries a 
certain day is set apart when fires are 
lighted on the tops of hills in commemora- 
tion of the old sun-worship. In Norway, 
and even Scotland, they are still called Bal- 
kur fires, and are supposed to be a last 
greeting to the sun when it begins it south- 
ward journey. 

“ Even our Christmas-trees, our illumina- 
tions, torch-light processions, and Fourth of 
July fire-works may be traced back to that 
antique fire and sun worship of old hu- 
manity. 


Among the Tramps. 


59 


“ Needless to state that the sun is my 
best friend all the year around. So you see 
plainly that my religion, besides its great an- 
tiquity, is in perfect accord with my own 
feelings, and with our fire-cracker style of 
American patriotism, and, therefore, the 
very best for me. 

“ Through light to liberty, through liberty 
to light. Hurrah ! I am a tramp.” 


6o 


Among the Tramps, 


PAT SHORTY’S STORY. 

WHAT MADE ME A TRAMP. 

I AM a tramp — and an inveterate one, if 
you please — for ample reasons, as you may 
see below. 

“ Twenty-odd years ago I was a successful 
coal-miner, earning from five to six dollars a 
day. If you do not know what a coal-miner 
is, ril tell you. A coal-miner is a man who 
sacrifices his share of sun and daylight, that 
others may change the night into day ; a 
man who passes his life in a damp, dark hole, 
that others may travel over lands and oceans 
and enjoy the benefit of milder climates ; a 
man covered with the blackest of dust and 
mud, that others may enjoy snow-white gar- 
ments, surf-bathing, gas and electric light ; 


Among the Tramps. 


6i 


a man working at starvation wages, that 
others may enjoy cheap cooking, cheap heat 
and light. 

“ Cheerfully accepting my task, I worked 
with pleasure ; for wages were good and 
living cheap. I could suppport my wife and 
child in easy circumstances. We had plenty 
to eat, a nice clean home, all the warm cloth- 
ing we needed, free fuel from the dumps at 
the mines, and at the end of each month a 
few dollars left for the savings-bank. Labor 
was indeed ‘ making the hours of life sweet,’ 
and, as you well know, ‘ Enough is as good 
as a feast.’ 

“ The war was just over and business 
booming. The war-tariff had been in force 
for some time, and was considered generally 
as a temporary but necessary measure. 
Soon, however, some one began to brag 
what blessing it was as a protection to infant 
industries and American labor. 

“ I do not know much about the infant, 
but I kno\v that the coal industry and the 


62 


Among the Tramps. 


coal barons have not only turned immensely 
rich themselves, but have enriched numerous 
railroad companies and manufacturers of all 
kinds. 

“However, the first practical acquaintance 
I had with the protection to American labor 
was a reduction of lo per cent on our wages. 
Assured that it was only temporary, we sub- 
mitted. It was soon succeeded by a second, 
a third, a fourth, and a fifth one. This was 
getting too stiff. We were then earning 
only three dollars a day, or thereabouts ; we 
could not stand it, and struck. Six months 
of idleness ate up all my little savings, and 
more too. Friends helped us along for some 
time ; but everything has an end — even 
charity. 

“ The wolf was at the door ; we were lit- 
erally starving. 

“ Some cheap, green hands from Belgium, 
Germany, Austria, and Italy were daily com- 
ing to fill our places. 

“ My wife was looking at me with such a 


Among the Tramps. 


63 


pale, terrified, inquisitive face that I had to 
turn away from her to conceal my emotion. 

“ Something whispered in my ear lots of 
foolish proverbs : ‘ Learn to labor and to 
wait,’ ‘ The blue of heaven is larger than the 
cloud,’ ‘ Keep up with the procession,’ ‘To- 
morrow is another day,’ ‘ There is paradise 
where there is plenty of bread,’ etc. 

“ Unable to stand it any longer, I went to 
work at reduced rates, in spite of all my 
former friends and associates, and was highly 
commended by my employers for my inde- 
pendence. 

“ Several political campaigns succeeded 
each other, and the Protection idea to 
American labor was loudly proclaimed ; 
also, the scare-crow of competition from the 
pauper-labor of Europe was daily rehearsed. 
Regularly we were led in droves to the polls 
to vote for protection of ‘ Infant Industries 
and American Labor.’ 

“ Each and every' time we were told that, 
after election, business would revive and 


64 


Among the T^'amps. 


wages increase. It was all a lie. I see it 
now too plain. The lo per cent reductions 
went on, and I worked still, having made up 
my mind to go ahead and stand it as long as 
any one. At the twelfth reduction, when 
we earned less than one dollar and a half a 
day, our supply of free fuel was stopped. 
An order went all along the line that miners 
must buy their supply of coal, as well as every 
one else. Protection ! 

“ At the fifteenth reduction, wages were 
only one dollar and five cents a day ; pro- 
visions were exhausted ; wife and children 
(I had three now) hungry and sickly; the 
winter at the door, and the wolf too. Order 
was passed along the line to stop mining in 
order to raise the price of coal. 

“What a winter! Two of my poor chil- 
dren died — I actually believe, from cold and 
starvation. Protection ! ” 

THE COAL BARONS. 

“ About that time a correspondent of the 


Among the Tramps. 


65 


New York Times wrote upon the situation. 
I have kept the slip about me, much crum- 
pled and soiled ; but here it is : 

“ * Why are the poor of the great cities 
threatened with a coal famine on account of 
the high price of anthracite, while the poor 
of the coal fields are menaced by a bread 
famine because they cannot find work in the 
mines at living wages ? ’ This is a question 
that is constantly asked in these ‘ diggin’s,’ 
where the miners, who have to work hard, 
are taxed heavily to maintain the 22,000 men 
who are idle in the Lehigh region trying to 
make the operators of that section pay them 
‘a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.’ 
The answer to this important question lies 
in the very serious fact that the anthracite 
coal trade, in all its ramifications, is con- 
trolled by a cast-iron monopoly, which dic- 
tates the pendulum of prices in New York 
and of wages in Pennsylvania. Were it not 
for this monopoly, there would be no strike 
in the Lehigh region and no such outrageous 


66 


Among the Tramps, 


prices for anthracite as we see quoted in the 
big cities. It is well known, through all the 
anthracite belt, that the Lehigh operators, 
who are holding out against their miners in 
their demand for decent wages, are fighting, 
not only their own battles, but the battles 
of the great coal kings, who are running the 
market for all it is worth, and who are deeply 
interested in preventing the success of the 
Lehigh strike. The coal barons of all Penn- 
sylvania know that, if the thousands of work- 
ingmen who are now eating the bread of 
idleness in the Lehigh region were to suc- 
ceed, their success would be followed by 
strikes in other sections, and they are inter- 
ested, therefore, in seeing that they do not 
succeed. For this reason they have pooled 
their issues, and are all bearing the loss of 
the Lehigh strike between them. If the 
loss were to fall altogether upon the local 
operators, they would not stand it for a 
month at a time when there is such a great 
demand for coal at fancy prices, and when 


Among the Tramps, 


67 


the Lehigh anthracite would bring the high- 
est price in the market. The small operators, 
rich though they be, in a certain sense, are 
but the puppets of the great railroad mining 
companies like the Lehigh Valley, the 
Pennsylvania, the Delaware & Hudson, the 
Reading, and the Delaware, Lackawanna, 
& Western corporations; and, what the big 
fish dictate, the minnows, as a general thing, 
will have to do. 

‘ It seems strange that, while the great 
coal corporations denounce organization 
among the masses of labor, they practise it 
themselves in such a manner as to let no 
opposition live if they can help it, and with 
a degree of relentlessness such as no mere 
labor association can ever hope to imitate. 
There is a certain quantity of anthracite 
coal in Pennsylvania. The number of tons 
has been approximated by scientists, and 
every pound of this precious fuel is as much 
under the control of the black monopoly of 
coal kings that has got possession of it as 


68 


Among the Tramps. 


the silver in the United States treasury is 
under the control of the government. The 
Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania 
is set at naught by this gigantic monopoly 
quite as much as it was and is by that other 
infamous monopoly, the Standard Oil Com- 
pany, which defied the State to collect any 
taxes from it, because, although drawing all 
its wealth from the Keystone State, it 
claimed to be an Ohio institution. Accord- 
ing to the Constitution of this State, railroad 
companies are not permitted to mine and 
ship coal, lest, perchance, they should dis- 
criminate against rival mining companies. 
How is it in real, every-day, prosaic prac- 
tice? Simply thus: Nobody is permitted to 
mine or ship coal except by the grace of the 
great railroad and mining companies, and 
then he must sell his anthracite at the 
mouth of the mine at a price to be fixed by 
the railroad corporation whose vassal he is. 
The individual operators are merely the vas- 
sals of the great coal companies, and yet 


Among the Tramps. 


69 


become millionaires. What a profitable 
business this anthracite mining must be 
when even the vassal individual operators, 
who give the lion’s share of the profit to the 
railroad company, become millionaires and 
petty despots ! And yet, the miners and 
laborers, who take their lives in their hands 
every day and every night they enter their 
black workshops, are paid barely enough to 
keep body and soul together. The condi- 
tions of the Lehigh region were the harshest 
to be found anywhere. There the ‘ company ’ 
house, and the ^ pluck-me ’ store, and the 
‘ bleed-me doctor flourish at their best ; and 
the wonder is, that people so trodden in the 
dust had the spirit to rebel against their task- 
masters and cry out against the grievous 
wrongs inflicted upon them. 

‘ The latest news of the Lehigh strike 
received here is that two thousand Belgian 
miners have been employed in the Old 
Country to come to this country for the 
purpose of working the mines of the ^ philan- 


yo Among the Tramps. 

thropist' X. If the Belgians come, there 
will be bloodshed, for the men here feel that 
they might as well die fighting for their 
rights as starve to death by the wayside in 
midwinter ; for, if they are driven out, they 
will be discriminated against and blacklisted 
by every petty boss in the anthracite val- 
leys of Pennsylvania, and they will not be 
able to find work anywhere. It is a sad 
state of affairs, a few weeks before Christ- 
mas — coal scarce in the city and food scarce 
at the mouth of the idle mines, where men 
would be only too willing to work if they 
could obtain reasonable pay for their labor* 
Relief committees, appointed by the miners, 
are now canvassing for food and funds 
among the workingmen of this section. 
They have been generously received, and 
large amounts have gone to help the hungry 
families of the men on strike, but, after all, 
it is not what the hardy miners and laborers, 
who, as a general thing, are men of spirit, 
would like. Those who need assistance 


Among the Tramps, 


71 


most are often most backward in applying 
for it ; and a good many pitiful cases of des- 
titution from this cause alone have been 
brought to light. There is no good reason 
why all the mines in the anthracite regions 
should not be working full time, at satisfac- 
tory wages, with coal selling in the large 
cities at half its present price per ton. This 
would be the condition of affairs were it not 
for the monopoly that grows rich upon the 
miseries of the millions.’ 

“ So far the Times ; but its words cannot 
picture our misery. 

'‘The cities of the West were clamoring 
for coal at any price — just what your fat 
monopolist expected. As high as forty 
cents a bushel was asked for anthracite at 
retail ; work was resumed, but only half of 
the time. Protection ! 

" We were starving. Our employers, the 
coal barons, were all smiles and rubbing 
their hands with delight. Such a cold, hard 
winter had not been heard of by the oldest 


72 


Among the Tramps. 


inhabitants. People were reported freezing 
to death out West, by hundreds, for want 
of fuel. What a god-send for the coal 
barons ! 

“ How we managed to pass the winter is a 
mystery to me yet. In the spring new lo 
per cent reductions succeeded one another. 
I was no longer able to buy any meat. We 
lived altogether on potatoes, cabbage, and 
bread or crackers. In May our last child 
died of the same complaint as the others, 
less the cold, perhaps. 

‘‘ My poor, desolate wife never recovered 
from the shock. With inexpressible grief, 
she bent her head down like a trampled 
flower and refused to be comforted. Ten 
days later we laid her quietly alongside her 
last darling. Poor soul ! we had dreamt of a 
different kind of future on the night of our 
wedding. I was not alone a mourner ; the 
mortality was fearful among the miners that 
year, and graveyards reaped the richest of 
harvests. Protection, sure enough, at last ! 


Among the Tramps, 


73 


“ At the nineteenth lo per cent reduction 
I was getting sixty-six cents a day. I sold 
out all of my furniture to pay the doctor s 
fee and the funeral expenses of the only two 
beings on earth that had loved me and for 
whom I cared to live. 

“ The same day I met one of the owners 
of the mine driving, with a friend, a spirited 
team, hitched to a splendid new carriage. 
He stopped to ask me a few questions about 
the road. After answering him curtly, as he 
was lingering, making inquiries about the 
men and their feelings, I told him of our 
misfortune. That I, for instance, had neither 
home nor family left, although one of their 
oldest hands, who had been faithfully work- 
ing for so many years, submitting patiently 
to so many reductions of wages, and was 
actually working at sixty-six cents a day. I 
then and there mildly intimated that, if that 
was the ‘ Protection ’ so much talked about at 
every election for so many years, it was a 


74 


Among the Tramps, 


mighty poor article for the laborers ; at any 
rate, we were much worse off than before. 

He whipped his horses, so that they 
reared and plunged, shouting, ‘ If you don’t 
like it, you can just leave it alone.’ I heard 
his friend ask the question, ‘ Who was that ?’ 
to which the answer is still ringing in my 
ears — ‘ Oh, a coal-digger only. ’ 


‘ A COAL-DIGGER ONLY. 

“ * That others may enjoy 
Prosperity, and health, 

And peace without alloy. 

And office, power, and wealth, 

He burrows like a mole, 

All dusty, grim, and black, 

And lives in a dark hole. 

Scarce a rag upon his back : 

A coal-digger only. 

“ * Whence your linen, white as snow ? 

And your satins, silks, and flowers ? 
And your sparkling wines, that flow 
Through your revels’ rosy hours ? 


Amo^fg the Tramps, 


75 


Whence your gems, and chains of gold 
And your palaces and fites. 

While, in hunger and in cold. 

There hangs around your gates 

A coal-digger only? 

“ ‘ That you may possess proud halls. 

And delicious joints to carve. 

And great mirrors on your walls. 

His wife and children starve — 

Starve, in sickness and in pain. 

While the rain pours through the roof ; 
But complaint is all in vain. 

For he is — and you the proof — 

A coal-digger only. 

“ ‘ But, hark ! — that dreadful crash. 

And that wild, despairing cry. 

As pale crowds, in horror, dash. 

To the smoking mine close by. 

Each blackened corpse that’s found 
Invokes some thrilling shriek ; 

And, when stretched upon the ground. 
You see — no need to speak — 

A coal-digger only.’ 


These words, coal-digger only,’ are 


76 


Among the Tramps. 


still ringing in my ears, as I said ; and it 
seems they will go on ringing until the day 
of retribution shall render each one his dues. 

“ From that very hour I became one of 
those Pariahs of modern society commonly 
called tramps ; and have since then met 
thousands of such, formerly thrifty miners, 
pedlers, moulders, and laborers of all kinds, 
driven, like myself, to that half-way house 
on the road to Despair, by the legalized rob- 
bery called ‘ Protection ! ’ 

“We tramps all agree with Bacon — that 
riches, like manure, do stink when in big 
heaps, while highly beneficial when evenly 
distributed." 


OUR BANKERS. 

“ I have tramped from the Rio Grande to 
the St. Lawrence, and from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, have seen many curious sights, 
and have met many strange people. The 
other day I crossed into Canada and went 
to the public park to rest awhile. A noisy 


Among the Tramps. 


77 


crowd of laughing and [rollicking young 
men passed by. They wore immense golden 
watch-chains, and diamond pins, studs, and 
rings. A dozen beautiful young ladies, literally’ 
covered with jewels, silks, satins, and plumes, 
laughed and chatted , with them, while ser- 
vants followed with baskets of champagne 
and victuals of all kinds. They had a 
grand lawn party, full of fun and merriment. 

I thought at first that they were English 
lords on a rampage, but soon noticed that 
they were Americans. Their slang and ac- 
tions betrayed them. After the repast was 
over, I humbly approached some servants, 
busy packing away empty bottles, plates, 
glasses, and the remnants of the feast. 
There was enough left to feed a dozen men. 
One servant, kindly disposed, gave me the 
substantial remains of a leg of mutton and 
some cakes, and went off with his basket. 
While I was quietiy eating and congratulat- 
ing myself upon my unexpected good luck 
in a foreign country, a few of the gentlemen 


78 


Among the Tramps, 


returned to get some more wine and cigars. 
They espied the visible demonstration of 
my healthy appetite, but, probably not very 
•favorably impressed with the antique cut of 
my garments or my neglected appearance, 
began to abuse me in the most offensive 
language, calling me rascal, thief, robber, 
and God knows what. They were evidently 
full of wine ; offered to kick me out of the 
park and ordered me away in a very coarse 
and loud manner. Just then the park po- 
lice put in an appearance, and, in spite of 
my protestations of innocence, arrested me, 
and were dragging me to prison when we 
happily met the servant that had given me 
the morsels of food. He explained matters. 
I was released ; but not without the admoni- 
tion to leave the city without delay; for, 
since I had incurred the dislike of such high- 
toned gentlemen, it was better that I should 
go, the authorities being adverse to any- 
thing that might displease the wealthy 
strangers. I asked who they were and what 


Among the Tramps. 


79 


their business was ; and was informed, in a 
low whisper, that they were runaway bank 
presidents and cashiers, spending, in high 
carousal, money stolen from depositors, 
business men, workingmen, widows, and or- 
phans in the States. Over fifty of them 
lived in that city alone, and business was 
booming since their advent. It would 
never do to offend them. 

“ And such had dared to call me a thief 
and a robber ! 

“ Thank the Lord, I am a tramp. 

“ But, the bankers are not all of that odor- 
forous kind. Some will never run away, 
but stick to their books and their dollars 
until grim Death alone carries them to an- 
other shore. Some banks are mysteriously 
run and mysteriously closed. The whole 
mystery comes out at last that — they never 
were of any account. 

Some are run on the braggadocio style, 
with grand flourish of moral trumpets; and 
local papers neglect no occasion to give 


8o 


Among the Tramps, 


them slight, indirect puffs that they seldom 
deserve and for which they never pay. 

“ Some are run upon pious principles, by 
deacons and elders of the most popular 
churches of the city. That class deserves 
careful watching. 

“ I once knew a banking firm by the name 
of Ketchum, Rob & Killham. Who laughs ? 
They were neither worse nor better than 
any other average bankers. Whether they 
earned their name or not, is a matter be- 
tween them and their conscience — if they 
have any. I relate only facts. The firm 
consisted of one very shrewd and very old 
man and two sleepy boys. 

“The sleepy boys were considered thor- 
oughly honest, and would, under circum- 
stances, have been an ornament to any so- 
ciety. The venerable old man was very 
honest, too, although with the reputation of 
a sharp, sly, old fox. They enjoyed the 
confidence of the people to such an extent 
that their coffers were soon replete with 


Among the Tramps. 


8i 


money. But the Protection craze came 
along and proved disastrous. According to 
the wise sayings of the time, whoever 
started an industry or factory of any kind 
was sure to make a fortune in less than no 
time, under the ‘ Protective tariff.’ No 
wonder that foundries, coal mines, woollen- 
mills, machine-shops received special atten- 
tion, even if they were living in a pure farm- 
ing community out West. 

A general and continued shrinkage took 
place. All the best customers of the bank- 
■ ers, their friends and patrons, either got 
ruined, failed, ran away, or turned criminals 
from necessity. Small manufacturers, mer- 
chants, traders, industrials, magistrates — the 
very best of men — attentive, honest, econom- 
ical, were lost as soon as they availed them- 
selves of the facilities of that fatal bank. 
^ Those very facilities were fatal at that spe- 
^ cial time, when everybody West, was being 
bled to death to feed the protected leeches. 

■' Formerly the city where they lived was 


82 


Among th^ Tramps, 


booming ; the country was, and is to this 
day, one of the finest in the world. After 
so and so many years of ^ Protection,’ all 
values went down ; the place began to be 
deserted ; everybody that could go, was 
leaving in double-quick ; the bank soon 
owned everything — the manufactories, the 
business and dwelling houses, but they 
were all empty, and bringing no rents. As 
with the Arab and the grasshoppers, where- 
ever Ketchum, Rob & Killham put down 
their foot, the grass forgot to grow. They 
extended their withering hand to some neigh- 
bor counties. In a few years they owned 
one fourth of the lands, mostly those not 
worth owning. People began to leave by 
the hundreds, going north, south, east, west 
— anywhere out of the blasted circle. No- 
body returned to fill their places ; lands and 
houses had no prices. In spite of their pro- 
verbial honesty, coupled with intent shrewd- 
ness and the strictest economy, loaded with 
the ownership of innumerable tracts of land. 


Among the Tramps. 


83 


and houses, Ketchum, Rob & Killham had 
to succumb at last. The money needed to 
fill the coffers of our protected Yankees had 
to come from somewhere, and it did, with a 
vengeance. 

“ I was sorry for the boys, they seemed 
deserving a better fate. One nice morning 
they scattered like chaff before the wind. 
They did not go to Canada ; they never did 
things like other people. One went to Cuba, 

! one to prison, and another took a special 
; lead and powder ticket for that unknown 
country from whose bourne no traveller 
1 returns, but that we’ll all visit soon enough.” 

MY RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CREED. 

I am a follower of pure Islam — the 
religion of peace and true resignation, a 
Mohammedan without Mohammed, as Jake 
. Trueheart is a Christian without Christ. 

: V/e have no difficulty whatever to meet 
on the same ground. Why a .Trinity, a 
mother of God, a son, or a prophet, be- 


84 


Among the Tramps. 


tween myself and my God? Nonsense — 
the biggest nonsense that ever was invented. 
What! My God unable to hear me direct, 
unable or unwilling to understand me, 
except through proxy ? through ‘ paid mouth- 
pieces’? through ‘salaried ear-trumpets’? 
Too thin ! Who believes anything of the kind 
to-day? What sort of God could that be, 
anyhow ? 

“ My God knows everything, sees every- 
thing, and hears everthing ; therefore, I confer 
with him direct. Here is the daily Moslem 
prayer : 

“ Praise to God ! There is but one God — 
the Lord of the Worlds, the Compassionate, 
the Merciful. Thee do we worship, and of 
Thee seek we help. Guide us in the right 
way ; the way of those to whom Thou hast 
been gracious.’ 

“ Boys, that is the religion of the future — 
no churches, no popes, no priests, no inter- 
cessors, no altars, no pews, as it might have 
been long, long ago except for the ignorance 


Among the Tramps. 85 

and imperfections of Mohammed himself 
and of his followers. 

I do fear God ; 

And, next to God, 

I fear him most 
That fears Him not. 

And the fear of God, according to Moham- 
med’s own definition, is to disburse wealth to 
relatives, to orphans, to the needy, to the 
wayfarer, and to the tramps^ to be faithful 
to engagements ; patient under ills, hardships 
and in time of trouble ; to be just and 
merciful to all. 

“ If you can find a more sublime creed, trot 
it out and let us have it in double quick. 

“As to polygamy, I can’t say that I am 
much in favor of it, although the disparity 
of sexes is a very remarkable fact. Think 
of it for one moment. Your human customs 
and laws tell, to one half a million of lovely 
girls : ‘ God has created you expressly to be 

mothers, but you shall not ; we won’t allow 


86 


Among the Tramps, 


it ; there are not enough boys to go around 
and it can’t be helped now ! ’ 

‘‘No matter whether they crowd in pros- 
titution-houses, or crowd out the males 
from the schools, the factories, the stores, 
the telegraph offices, the clerkships, or even 
dabble in politics and religion, to their own 
and other people’s confusion, trying to com- 
pensate, by some fictitious occupations, the 
loss of their natural right to maternity. So- 
called human (but very inhuman) laws and 
customs have driven them to unnatural 
spheres, and there they must stay, ‘ Root, hog, 
or die ’ fashion, and vegetate — often enough, 
it is true, rebelling in secret against what they 
feel instinctively to be a glaring injustice. 

“ Set a limit, if you want — say two or 
three — and you’ll be sure not to have your 
daily papers full of elopements and divorce 
cases, as they are now. Do you not know that, 
before God, a girl has just as much right to 
be a mother as you have to eat an apple or to 
drink a . cup of tea ? Look only at the records 


Among the Tramps. 87 

of your courts of justice, and tell me if so- 
ciety is not very sick on the subject ? 

“ I have remarked that, as a rule, women 
shrink from wedding workingmen, since the 
beauties of ‘ Protection’ have left them so 
destitute. Who would choose a life of mis- 
ery and starvation? The consequence is, 
that laborers get only the third pick or the 
refuse in the market. Ha ! don’t you tremble 
in your boots, protected barons, to think 
what progeny of discontented Socialists and 
Anarchists must result from such a sad mat- 
ing? 

Protection, invented to enrich the few 
by robbing the many, is busy preparing the 
tools that will some day fry the fat out of 
these few. I hope to God to live long 
enough to help stir the fire under the frying- 
pan. 

“ Every night I see my wife and three 
children urging me not to forget the ' pro- 
tected barons.’ I am trying very hard to for- 
give, but I cannot. I shall, I will never forget. 


V 


88 Among the Tramps. 

Although not caring much myself for ’ 
beer or liquor I am not in favor of prohib- 
ition, except temporarily, to punish certain 
elements when they attempt to rob other 
people of their rights ; as, when the saloon 
and liquor men pretend to dictate terms to 
parties, pack conventions, select candidates, i 
etc. I saw once a liquor-man, taking advan- \ 
tage of the absence of one co-delegate, sub- \ 
vert and nullify the expressed will of a ^ 
whole city and of an entire county. They ; 
forget how quick one extreme calls another 
extreme, or one injustice is revenged by an- 
other. ! 

“ A few years of strict prohibition would be ' 
richly deserved by such confounded fools. | 
As to excesses in eating and drinking, they, ! 
like everything else, will always best regulate I 
themselves by liberty, than by compulsion j 

or coercion.” ] 

i 

POVERTY NO CRIME. j 

“ Some may think that the life of a tramp j 


I 


Among the Tramps. 


89 


must be very near unbearable. They are 
very much mistaken. I like it ; there is a sub- 
lime attraction in the feeling of reckless inde- 
pendence and of living au jour le jour in sol- 
itary communion with God and nature. 

“ Poverty is no crime. It has furnished 
more thinkers and reformers to the world 
than all the combined riches. Where is the 
vaunted wealth of Solomon and of all ancient 
empires ? Gone, and scattered to the winds : 
while the precepts of thousands of philoso- 
phers, from Buddha and Confucius to Christ 
and Mohammed, will last forever ; and they 
all agree that poverty is rather a blessing 
than anything else. 

“ ‘ The poor ye shall always have with ye.’ — Christ. 

*“ For the Lord heareth the poor.’ — Koran. 

I know that it is not fashionable to be 
poor, in our times ; while ancient history is 
replete with examples of a different turn of 
mind. 

How many nobles and wealthy men, even 
kings and emperors, after having enjoyed 


90 


Among the Tra7nps. 


riches to their fill, entered the vows of 
poverty to satisfy the longings of their 
hearts ? How many do it to-day? 

The Anti-Poverty movement, lately in- 
augurated, is a humbug of the first water, apt 
to create only worshippers of the ‘ almighty 
dollar,’ unless it is but the whistling of the 
steam escaping through the safety-valve thus 
created to relieve the social pressure in the 
interest of the protected robbers. At any 
rate, it is a straw showing which way the 
wind blows. Thank God, I am not ashamed 
to own that I am a tramp, and can cheerfully 
sing, with Washington Gladden, in spite of 
my utter poverty, his ‘ Ultima Veritas 

“Tn the bitter waves of woe, 

\ Beaten and tossed about 

In the sullen winds that blow 
From the desolate shores of doubt, 

“ ‘ When the anchors that Faith had cast . 

Are dragging in the gale, 

I am quietly holding fast 
To the things that cannot fail. 


Amon^ the Tramps. 

‘I know that Right is Right ; 

That it is not good to lie; 

That love is better than spite, 

And a neighbor than a spy. 

‘ I know that passion needs 
The leash of a sober mind ; 

I know that generous deeds 
Some sure rewards will find ; 

‘That the rulers must obey; 

That the givers shall increase; 

That Duty lights the way 

For the beautiful feet of Peace ; 

‘ In the darkest night of the year, 
When the stars have all gone out, 
That courage is better than fear ; 
That faith is truer than doubt. 

‘ And fierce though the winds may fight 
And long though the angels hide, 

I know that Truth and Right 
Have the universe on their side ; 

‘And that somewhere beyond the stars 
Is a love that is better than fate. 
When the Night unlocks her bars, 

I shall see Him: and I will wait.'" 


92 


Among the Tramps. 


JAKE TRUEHEART SPEAKS. 

THREE BROTHERS. 

“ Brother Joe is a Christian, an Eastern 
manufacturer. He pays a round sum for 
a front pew in his church. His family, 
raised in the fear of the Lord, is an orna- 
ment to the Sunday-school and society at 
large. His name is always heading the sub- 
scription-list for foreign missions and vari- 
ous benevolent institutions ; and the list is 
regularly published in the papers. Joe pays 
his taxes and votes the Republican ticket. 

“ Brother Jake is farming out West, has 
a large family of hard-working sons and 
daughters, and is the best customer of his 
brother Joe, for he buys and uses a great 
many articles all the year round. He is a 


Among the Tramps. 


93 


Christian, too — after his fashion — but takes 
his toddy once in a while, and thinks, when- 
ever he finds time to think between his 
labors, that he is not always treated very 
brotherly by his wealthy brother. He pays 
his taxes, too. Heugh ! how heavy they are 
sometimes ! He used to vote the Republi- 
can ticket, too, but has been saying for some 
time : ‘ I’ll be dogged if I do it any longer. 
I’ve just got enough of it.’ 

Brother John lives on the other side of 
the Atlantic, is a skilled workman, and a 
first-class business manager of an economi- 
cal turn of mind. He has tons of splendid 
goods for sale very cheap, and Jake, who 
is shipping him a great deal of grain and 
meat at times, would be very much inclined 
to take some of his goods in exchange, in- 
asmuch as they are not only cheaper, but 
often superior to those manufactured by 
Joe. 

But Brother Joe, by the aid of his little 
tariff, manages to stop that arrangement; 


94 Among the Tramps. 

for how could he afford to build such fine 
country residences on the Hudson if he 
had to sell as cheap as Brother John? 

Soon Brother Joe wants to build, also — a 
nice cottage at Long Branch. That will 
cost a great deal of money. ‘ A little rise in 
the tariff, say 50 per cent, on Brother 
John’s goods would not be a bad idea. I 
could then sell my goods just that much 
higher. Brother Jake had such splendid 
crops out West he will hardly notice the 
difference.’ 

“ Brother Joe wants to take his fine 
stable of thoroughbreds to the races in 
Europe ; bound to win several, if not all 
the cups, which is sure to add greatly to 
our national fame. A little rise in the tariff, 
to 75 per cent, is absolutely necessary, or 
the Eastern manufacturers will all be bank- 
rupt within six months ; and then, our 
workingmen must be protected, you know. 
Brother Jake need not complain, for he had 
such nice crops this year ! 


Atnotig the Travips, 


95 


“ Brother Joe’s hands have struck for 
higher wages — most fatal affair ! 

“ ‘And we were just going to have such a 
nice time with our sixty-thousand-dollar 
steam yacht. The trip must be postponed. 
Terrible, dreadful ! What will the neigh- 
bors and the yacht-club say ? But, hold ! 
Good news ! good news ! One thousand 
Italians and three thousand Hungarians and 
Russian Jews have just arrived in New 
York. With a little training, they will do; 
and then — God bless them ! — they work for 
half price, even less. Let the strikers go 
to — grass. There are some people that 
never learn to let well enough alone. Serves 
them right. We do not need them any 
longer. Young man, go West. Wander 
towards the home of Brother Jake. He can 
feed you ; he had such nice crops this year. 
In the mean time we keep the tariff up and 
pay only half-wages to the new hands. 
That was a lucky strike. 

“ ‘ Sophronia, darling, make yourself ready 


96 


Among the Tramps. 


in a few days. I intend to take you and 
the whole family to Europe ; we’ll have a 
grand, nice time. I have just learned that 
the Tariff Commission, snugly assembled in 
my cottage at Long Branch, after due and 
mature consideration of the wants of the 
industries in this country, have resolved to 
recommend an additional duty of 50 per 
cent. They might have done better, but 
that will do for the present. It is, for all 
intents and purposes, just as good as if 
passed by Congress and approved by the 
President. We have the funds, and know 
how to fix those matters. Brother Jake, out 
West, will not object, I hope ; for he had 
such nice crops this year ! And then, I am 
reliably informed that wages are very low 
in his vicinity, for all of our old strikers 
have been at last compelled to emigrate in 
his direction and to take what they can get. 
Serves them right. Why did they strike 
when they were having such nice wages 
here? Why, just think of it! they were 


Among the Tramps. 


97 


earning more than double what we pay 
now to Italians, Huns, and Chinese; and 
these new hands grow fat — just look at them. 
How happy they are ! We never had such 
lamblike, quiet, submissive hands before.' 
Children, let us praise the Lord with thank- 
fulness for His many blessings.’ ” 

WHAT BECAME OF MY FARM. 

‘‘That ‘dear Brother Jake out West’ al- 
low me to introduce to you as your hum- 
ble servant Jake Trueheart, once the hap- 
py farmer, now the tramp. And how it hap- 
pened is all due to that cunning lie called 
‘ Protection.’ 

“ Have patience and listen how it works. 

“ On one hand is the protected manufac- 
turer — protected, not only by the tariff, that 
permits him to ask double and treble prices 
for his goods, but by the actual circum- 
stances of his own calling. He is protected 
from wind and snow in winter, from rain 
and sun in summer; his work is limited to 


98 


Among the Tramps. 


eight hours by protection of the law. Dur- 
ing the hot months, ice-cold water is always 
handy in some corner of the establishment ; 
in winter-time the whole factory is heated 
by steam, or otherwise. Being thus pro- 
tected against the inclemency of the weath- 
er, he needs not half as many clothes, hats, 
boots, or shoes as the farmer. The week or 
month over, his wages are regularly paid in 
hard cash, when not in scrip on the com- 
pany’s store. The masters, bosses, clerks, 
bookkeepers, agents, messengers are still 
better off as their work is less onerous. On 
the other hand is the unprotected farmer — 
indeed unprotected ! Knee-deep in mud 
and waist-deep in snow or slush — that is his 
ordinary lot in winter. Sun, rain, and hail 
during the whole summer alternate, danc- 
ing a hornpipe on his unprotected cranium. 

“ Long before Aurora’s rosy fingers knock 
at the gates of the East, he is. up and doing, 
— feeding stock, cleaning and harnessing 
horses. 


Among the Tramps, 


99 


“ The first rays of the sun are accus- 
tomed to find him plowing, mowing, reap- 
ing, threshing, or hauling; and, long after 
the last rays of the evening have fringed 
with silver the clouds of the West, he 
often enough can be found at the same task 
yet. 

“ Twelve hours, sometimes as many as 
eighteen hours, are oftener his daily allot- 
ment, than the eight hours of his protected 
brother. 

“ And, what with storms, wind, hail, 
droughts, inundations, sweeping down of 
fences, breaking of cattle through fields, 
army-worms, potato-bugs, chinch-bugs, epi- 
demics among the live-stock, hog-cholera ; 
dog-raids among the sheep ; skunks, minks, 
foxes, and hawks after the poultry, and a 
I thousand other calamities by day and by 
j night, he has never any rest, so to speak. 
; Happy when his horses do not run 
I away and smash protected tools and ma- 
j chinery that he may have to replace at a 


lOO 


Aniong the Tramps. 


much advanced cost, since a least reduction 
of the tariff is at once shouted down as 
‘ Free Trade” and has very nearly become 
an impossibility, while the increasing is al- 
ways in order. 

“ Some years ago crops began to get 
thinner and thinner, and so did my pocket- 
book. From year to year prices of produce 
went down and taxes went up ; so did the 
tariff. Everthing we farmers had to sell, 
was sold at actual loss. Just then my house 
and barn were getting terribly shaky and 
rickety ; I was compelled to rebuild them. 
To do it, I had to mortgage my nice farm 
to some agent of an Eastern company. He 
charged me 5 per cent commision, and 
8 per cent interest payable semi-annually ; 
but that was nothing compared with the 
tariff for Protection. I found out, to my 
great horror, that I was being terribly fleeced 
and robbed to help those infant millionaires 
of the East, that held already the mortgage 
on my homestead. 


Amo/.’g the Tramps, loi 


I had to pay the following sweet taxes 

On lumber, .... 

i6 

per cent 

On window glass, 

lOO 

a 

On small screws, 

6i 

a 

On red-lead 

8i 

a 

On carpets, .... 

6o 

44 

On tinware, .... 

45 

44 

On files and rasps. 

63 

44 

On hosiery, .... 

62 

44 

On hats and caps. 

54 

44 

On salt, 

50 

44 

On wire cloth for screens, . 

103 

44 

On rice, .... 

1 12 

44 

On chains, .... 

44 

44 

On nails, .... 

43 

44 

On shingles. 

17 

44 

On white-lead. 

40 

44 

On wall-paper. 

25 

44 

On cement. 

20 

44 

On horseshoes. 

55 

44 

On cheap woollen cloth. 

89 

44 

On flannels. 

70 

44 

On blankets. 

73 

44 

On sugar. 

92 

44 

On hoop-iron. 

85 

44 

On whiting and pans white. 

89 

4 4 

On cutlery. 

50 

44 


and so forth, in like proportion, on every- 
thing else. 


102 


Among the Tramps. 


“ If I had considered it before, I never 
would have started building. It was too late 
now, and all my money gone ; nearly one 
half of the value of my farm went in those 
buildings. We had a jolly house-warming, 
and were calculating how closely and atten- 
tively we would put in the next crop, to 
help pay for all the new improvemente. The 
next crop came ; it was short. What we had 
to sell, had no price, and there was not 
enough of it to keep the family and pay 
taxes, still less to pay the interest. Another 
crop, and another failure. This time I could 
not even pay my taxes, and had to borrow 
money to buy feed for the stock. The next 
year brought another failure of crops, and I 
had to give a chattel mortgage on all my 
personal property to satisfy creditors and 
gain time. Affairs at home were not 
pleasant ; we did not even always eat our 
fill; wife and children had not had new 
clothes for a good while. I was in tatters, 
in ‘ Protected’ rags — if you please, but they 


Amon^ the Trajups. 


103 


were poor protection to me. We were going 
barefoot most of the time, and put shoes on 
only to go to church. The smallest children 
had none at all. One mishap never comes 
alone, and, when it rains bad luck, it pours. 
Sickness began to knock at the door of our 
dreary home, and several of the children had 
oftener medicine than bread. Happily our 
physician was a neighbor, not rich, neither 
even in fair circumstances ; but full of kind 
attentions, and as charitable as only Western 
or Southern physicians can be. I never have 
been able to pay him. When the crash came, 
and I was expressing my despair at being 
hopelessly in his debt, his only answer was : 
‘ Never mind, Jake ; don’t mention it. I know 
that you would pay if you could, and that 
is enough for me.’ 

“ Let us hurry on : the remembrance of 
those terrible times is torture itself. Things 
went from bad to worse ; farms were every- 
where offered for sale at much-reduced prices, 
and no purchaser could be found. Values 


104 Among the Tramps. 

shrank at a rapid rate, and many places were 
in the market at one third of their former 
worth. I wrote several letters to brother J oe, 
in Connecticut, begging him to come to my 
assistance ; but never received any answer. 
Several years later, I was informed that he 
had died previously, leaving a fortune of a 
couple of millions of dollars, one half of 
which he willed to his wife and children, and 
the other half to several churches and 
societies of foreign missions. Charity begins 
in Africa, for some Christians. 

“ The crash came ; it was fearful. Three 
of our children died within two weeks and 
my poor wife got nearly distracted ; then 
came the sheriff and the constable. All 
personal property went to cover the chattel 
mortgage, and the farm was sold under fore- 
closure. The agent of that Eastern company 
offered me two hundred dollars cash for 
my right of redemption. What else could 
I do but accept, having nothing left to work 
the place with ? 


Among the Tratnps. 


“ Reserving only five dollars for myself, I 
gave the whole amount to my wife for safe- 
keeping until I could find work and lodging 
in the next city. What was left of my once 
so happy family remained with a kind neigh- 
bor. 

“ On the following Sunday, when returning 
to report what I intended now to do, I was 
thunder-struck. My wife, with her youngest 
child, had disappeared for parts unknown. 

“ She has gone far away , 

I never shall see her more. 

She ran away with a tin-ware man 
To Maine’s protected shore. 

“Useless to describe my utter despair. — 
I had three children left. What could I do 
with them? Shame, shame, for that last 
blow of ‘ Protection !’ I was compelled to 
sell theml To sellthem^ mind you, or (it is 
the same thing) to bind them over, until 
their majority, to other poor farmers, receiv- 
ing in payment a bundle of old ‘Protected’ 
clothing and two loaves of bread. 


io6 Among the Tra7np$, 

“Here I am — Jake Trueheart, the farmer 
of former days, a well-educated man, com- 
pelled, by your boasted civilization of the 
nineteenth century, to sell his own children, 
— now a poor abandoned and miserable 
tramp.” 

MY POLITICAL CREED. 

“In contrast to Slim Jim’s true illustra- 
tion of modern Republicanism, I, with the 
Democracy, claim for every man entire 
liberty, limited only by the free enjoyment 
of the same by others. That limit is defined 
by law. A true and good man, a perfect 
gentleman, with a well-balanced mind and 
heart, does never come in conflict with the 
law. And were we all such perfect citizens, 
we should need no written law, no lawyers, 
no courts, no sheriffs, no constables, no 
police — in fact, no government at all. As 
nature governs itself without official inter- 
ference, according to the eternal rules of 
unwritten laws, so it is hoped that mankind 


Among the Tramps. 


107 

may one day be enabled to govern itself 
without police, constables, and military. 
That is true Anarchism, or no government, 
in opposition to Socialism, where everything 
is government. 

“ We read, in the Bible, of about 14CX) 
years before Christ : ‘ In those days there was 
no government in Israel ; every man did 
that which was right in his own eyes.’ 

Democracy is the only form of govern- 
ment of true divine origin, for it seeks to 
apply the rules of God’s nature to men’s 
own destinies. Who can see into these 
things clearer than a tramp, daily in close 
contact with God’s wonderful nature ? 

“ When I lay down in the grass at night, 
and wonder at the millions of stars that 
look on me from above, and have been per- 
haps for millions and millions of years mov- 
ing in the same perfect quiet order and 
accord, I am lost in admiration. I have for 
years watched them pretty closely, but al- 
ways failed to find among them the police- 


Among the Tramps. 


io8 

man, or the sheriff, the tax-gatherer, the bung- 
smeller, the soldier, or the priest. All these 
oppressive and so-called necessary evils of 
society are pure inventions of the Devil, — 
or of wicked mankind, which is pretty much 
the same thing. Talk to me about progress 
and civilization ! It is all bosh and lie, and 
fetters and chains — nothing but chains ; and 
all the people, big and small, old and young, 
rich and poor, still doing nothing else but 
forging new fetters. 

“ If that is progress and civilization, thank 
you ! I am a tramp. 

From time immemorial, all priests and 
religious systems have tried to make man- 
kind believe that nature was governed by the 
whims of God or gods, and not by laws, and 
that, by means of blood, sacrifices, interces- 
sions, money, gifts, or prayers of certain 
privileged classes, high-priests, etc., the 
will of such God or gods could be influ- 
enced at pleasure. Call them popes, patri- 
archs, Brahmins, dervishes, bishops, priests. 


Among the Tramps. 109 

reverend ministers, medicine-men, or rain- 
makers of the African desert, it is all the 
same gang of impostors. When the fox 
preaches, look out for your geese. They 
were always carefully indorsed and sup- 
ported by the civil arm of all usurpers and 
conquerors; for, if mankind could only be 
made to believe that Nature’s government 
was influenced by certain ceremonies and 
the intercession of a privileged class, it 
might also be made to believe, with the aid 
and authority of God’s men, that nations 
needed the governing hand of another privi- 
leged class, specially born and trained for 
that purpose. A plain case of * Scratch my 
back and I’ll scratch yours.’ Thus rulers 
have been crowned by priests and hailed as 
established by the grace of God. 

There has also pretty much always been 
two differently thinking classes of men. 
Those that believe men to be brutes, need- 
ing strong masters with iron rods to govern 
them, and those that believe men to be in- 


I lO 


Among the Trmnps, 


telligent beings, able to learn individually to 
behave themselves in liberty. 

“The first are in favor of strong gover- 
ments, rigid churches, high fenceJs, cattle- 
guards, compulsion, whips, hypocrisy, pur- 
gatory, hell, armies, wars. Protection, mo- 
nopolies, prisons, penitentiaries, and capital 
punishment. 

“ The last favor as little government as 
possible, or none if possible ; as much indi- 
vidual liberty as consistent with order, free 
thought, free press, free speech, free educa- 
tion and enlightenment, free trade, peace 
and good-will to men, reform of the morally 
diseased, hospitals for the sick, asylums for 
the cranks, and general charity for all. 

“The first are fitly represented by king- 
doms and empires, despots and slaves, the 
clergy, the stake, the block, the whipping- 
post, the ‘ blue-laws,’ and the Republican 
party. 

“ The last, nearly always in the minority, 
are represented by all the great thinkers, in- 


Among the Tramps. 


Ill 


ventors, and philosophers ; by all the reform- 
ers, Jesus Christ not excepted, and by the 
Democratic idea. 

“ I’ll bet you my bottom dollar — or 
rather the next best dollar I shall happen to 
call mine — that, at the slow rate we are pro- 
gressing, it will take hundreds of years and 
many more martyrs and tramp reformers, 
like Christ and others, before the genera- 
tion of slaves shall be able to understand 
what liberty means. 

“ I guess we won’t bet. Had we ten lives 
like that of Methuselah, I am afraid we 
might die before the question could be de- 
cided, unless some sort of social cyclone ac- 
celerates matters. 

“ I am looking, myself, for something of 
the kind pretty soon. Who cares that the 
extremists — Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, 
Communists, and what you may call them, 
that always manage to crawl on top of every 
sudden revolution, like the scum on top of 
the waves — are generally the worst despots 


I 12 


Among the Tramps. 


you ever saw ? They kill and murder thous- 
ands of innocents without the least remorse ; 
take revenge on buildings, monuments, 
bridges, palaces, libraries, and care for noth- 
ing but ruin, murder, and robl^ery ! That 
kind of remedy is several times worse than 
the disease, and mankind is apparently 
cheated in the end. But what should I 
care? It is their business; I am a tramp.” 

ABOUT CONSCIENCE. 

“ That ‘ divine spark in man’s bosom,’ as 
many are wont to call it, seems to me to be 
exceedingly closely related to the functions 
of the digestive organs. A hungary tramp, 
wandering aimlessly from hill to vale and 
from farm to farm, cannot possibly be ex- 
pected to form the same judgment and ar- 
rive at the same conclusions that a fat and 
rosy young minister of the Gospel, regularly 
fed upon truffled turkey and cranberry 
sauce, or that smart New-England mariner, 
that swears he cannot catch fish without the 


Among the Tramps. 113 

government’s aid nor salt it without special 
bounty. 

‘‘ I know that it is unlawful to steal, and 
still my conscience never does trouble me 
any on that score when I hook a few apples 
on the road to still my hunger or my thirst. 

“ Even the Jews — who certainly have de- 
served, and do deserve, a world’s reputation 
for closeness in matters of property — had a 
law authorizing every stranger or traveller to 
enter into any orchard or vineyard and eat 
their fill of the fruit, without being dis- 
turbed, but they were not allowed to carry 
any away in their basket. Talk to me 
about progress and civilization ! No Chris- 
tian state or nation has to-day such a sensible 
law on its statute-book ; and thus is plainly 
seen that the conscience of the sordid, avari- 
cious old Jews of 3000 years ago was more 
human, more progressive, more liberal, and 
more Christian than the boasted conscience 
of the Christian of our day. 

In the Rockies, I met once a crazy, old 


Among the Tramps. 


1 14 

Indian, very old, very crazy, and very ugly. 
He said that he could not die happy, for he 
had failed to find and kill a certain Ameri- 
can soldier, that had murdered his father 
thirty years before. He confessed that, as a 
kind of atonement, or to keep his hand in 
practice, he had managed to scalp many 
soldiers and miners on account, as it were, 
but his conscience would not leave him any 
rest until he had found and slaughtered the 
true murderer of his sire, and thus settled 
the bill in full. 

“A poor Catholic servant-girl of my ac- 
quaintance turned nearly crazy with grief 
and despair the other day upon discovering 
that she had carelessly eaten meat on a Fri- 
day. Had she been a vegetarian by choice 
or a hungry tramp by chance she would not 
have needed any conscience of that type. 
A young Arab, having once been made to 
drink some wine in a lemonade, is said to 
have stabbed himself to the heart for having 
thus violated the Koran. 


Among the Tramps, 


115 

“ Many tramps I know whose conscience 
would not allow to go to sleep unless they 
had inspected every empty beer keg in the 
town, and drained the very last drop of stale 
beer out of them. 

“ Many capitalists cannot conscientiously 
go to sleep without concocting some new 
scheme for protecting infant industries into 
their own pockets. 

“ In all these and in many other cases I 
fail to find the divine spark, and come to the 
logical conclusion that the Devil has just as 
good a claim to that spark as any other 
man. 

'‘There is the conscience of Joshua, stop- 
ping the sun to enable him to slaughter 
more enemies, and that of the Christian 
disciple presenting his left cheek to the one 
that smote his right. 

“There is the conscience of Joseph, who, 
having amassed all the wheat in the land, 
compels the Egyptians, during the years of 
famine, not only to give up all their money 


1 16 Among the Tramps, 

and property, but to sell themselves and 
their children as slaves to the king in ex- 
change for something to keep them from 
starving; and that of Moses, proclaiming, 
‘ There shall be no destitute man in the land 
and that of Belizar, throwing bread into the 
city that he was beleaguering. 

There is the conscience of the Moham- 
medan, who believes in a single God and 
Creator ; and that of the Christian, who be- 
lieves in a Trinity of Gods, with a mother, 
step-father, half-brothers, and several other 
saintly relatives, thrown in the bargain. 

‘‘ There is the conscience of the knights of 
the road of Credit Mobilier fame ; and that 
of the visiting statesman, concocting the 
fraud of 1876; and that of Guiteau, the in- 
spired crank ; and that of Rev. Burchard, 
with the three memorable R.’s ; and that of 
Rev. Ball and his sewer-gospel. 

“ There is the conscience of the Southern 
brigadier, sharing his last piece of corn bread 
with his departing slaves ; and there is that 


Among the Tramps. 117 

of the New England Yankee, bragging of his 
many deposits in savings-banks and his many 
mortgages on Western farms, and still beg- 
ging Congress for national assistance to 
enable him to make cloth, thread, and but- 
tons. 

Why, your boasted conscience is noth- 
ing but a horrid, hideous fetich, nursed and 
raised with all the prejudice, superstitions, 
and vices that you managed to suck in 
since your birth. Throw that away — it 
poisons your blood. 

“ My experience is that a good stomach 
and a good dinner, with a kind heart for 
others less lucky, is very apt to furnish any- 
body with a first-class article in the con- 
science line. 

“ Try it ; it won’t hurt you. I found it 
a very good specific, and can cheerfully rec- 
ommend it to every honest seeker after 
truth. 

“ The main question is to secure the three 
necessary requisites — a good stomach, a good 


ii8 A7nong the Tramps. 

dinner, and a kind heart. The first is amply 
represented among tramps, and the last is 
not altogether wanting { but I must confess 
that the second — a good dinner — is often 
quite sorely missing. 

‘‘ Happy those that possess the first and 
the second, for they can easily acquire the 
third. 

“ Conscience is, after all, but the con- 
densed sum-total of our moral experiences, 
measured by that standard of perfect good, 
that our ability, education, and circum- 
stances have enabled us to establish for our- 
selves. And, as every man is different from 
another in his original make-up and powers 
of assimilation, so there are no two con- 
sciences alike. 

Cursed, however, be the country where 
selfish greed is proclaimed as the first dogma 
of national conscience. 

If every Christian nabob, following to 
the letter the command of Jesus, were to sell 
all his property and distribute it to the 


Among the Tramps, 119 

poor, that would doubtless scandalize and 
revolt the whole of Wall street ; not me, 
though. Nothing of the kind could hurt my 
feelings. I am a tramp.” 

PROTECTION A CRIME. 

“ Every man has an undoubted right to a 
proper enjoyment of all that Nature sets be- 
fore him, and the gratification of his appe- 
tite, so far as it does no injury to himself or 
to anyone else. 

“ Whenever such enjoyment or gratifica- 
tion injuries yourself it becomes a vice ; when 
it does injury to others, it becomes a crime. 

Evidently Protection is a vicious crime, 
since it injures you and me. 

The survival of the fittest is the great law 
of nature. The unfit must go or mend his 
ways; for poverty, sickness, or death is always 
before him as a standing threat of punish- 
ment for transgressions of the law. 

“ Any human arrangement that pretends 


i£0 


Among the Tramps. 


to equalize the unfi,tness of the one with the 
fitness of the other, by any other means than 
in a true spirit of love and charity, is a direct 
violation of a natural law, and must sooner 
or later meet with dire retribution. 

‘‘ Selfish greed is a poor foundation 
whereupon to build a solid edifice — in modern 
times, anyhow : but, when the equalization 
measure is based upon a palpable and wilful 
lie, how much more heinous the crime, and 
how much more deserved the penalty ? 

“ Protectionists claim that our American 
population is unfit to manufacture anything 
except through the assistance of the govern- 
ment. 

Everybody knows this to be a lie on its 
face ; for no modern nation in the world 
has shown more inventive genius in all 
classes of labor-saving machinery and tools 
for the easy manufacturing of every possible 
article in use. There are smart mechanics 
in every country, but they sometimes lack 
the necessary capital. How is it here ? 


Among the Tramps, 121 

“ Let us look a little closer to the facts. 
Massachusetts has 173 savings-banks, with a 
per capita of deposits amounting to $155.96; 
Rhode Island shows the highest average, 
namely, $196 for every man, woman, child, 
servant, and tramp in the whole State ; Con- 
necticut reports $156.45, and New Hamp- 
shire $146.46. These are the highest aver- 
ages of any States in the Union and in the 
world. The above States are largely devoted 
to manufactures — more so than any other 
New England States, and still more so than 
the Middle and Western States. They are 
therefore the most protected, and still clam- 
oring for more Protection because more un- 
fitted for the fabrication of any article un- 
less assisted by a tax on every citizen at 
large. 

“The assertion that our shrewd Yankee 
brethren, with more patented inventions 
and more capital per head than any state 
or nation in the world, are in actual and 
continual need of assistance to thrive in 


122 


Among the Tramps, 


their occupations is so absurd that its mere 
statement is its uVn refutation. 

“To call this ‘The American System of 
Protection’ reminds me of the answers two 
ugly-looking tramps gave me yesterday. I 
asked one of them : 

“ ‘ What is your trade ? ’ 

“ ‘ I am in the fire and burglar proof safe 
business,’ was the answer. 

“‘In what department?’ 

“ ‘ In the testing-department of goods sold 
and delivered.’ 

“ ‘ Do you work on salary ? ’ 

“ ‘ No, on commission.’ 

“ ‘ What percentage do you earn ? ’ 

“ ‘ When not interrupted by intruders, the 
percentage is unlimited; in the other case 
it is mighty uncertain.’ 

“ ‘ And you ? ’ asked I of the other. 

“ ‘ I am a bank-examiner.’ 

“‘What, appointed by the comptroller 
of the currency ? ’ 

“‘No; I am of the volunteer kind, and 


Among the Ti‘ainps. 


123 


examine only after business hours, when 
the thieving and scheming bank officials 
are gone.’ 

“‘You mean gone to Canada.’ 

“ ‘ Oh, no ; in that case I give up the exami- 
nation, and pass on.’ 

“ ‘ Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said I, ‘ but I 
believe that you are nothing else but com- 
mon burglars.’ 

“‘Oh, shut up now,' exclaimed they; 
‘ who would use such vulgar expressions ? ’ 

“ I presume that the platform-carpenters 
simply meant the American system of 
r other but who would use such vulgar 
expressions, you know? As a euphemism, 
‘American System of Protection’ is good.” 

“ A system creating but poor tramps and nabobs, 
A system that three-fourths of our grand country 
robs, 

Is worse by far than war or the direst infectioh. 
Pinkerton ! Protection ! 

“ The price of wheat is set by India’s-barbarian, 

And Eastern men import Chinese and Hungarian 


124 Among the Tra7nps, 

To supplant, our workman. Oh, what a re- 
flection ! 

Pinkerton ! Protection ! 

“When workingmen rally to vindicate their 
right, 

’Tis a mob, and forsooth must be put down on 
sight ; 

But to rob us through Trusts and the vilest 
defection — 

Pinkerton ! Protection ! 

“ Thirty years are now since the war measure 
passed. 

And still we can’t see how much longer it will 
last. 

They’d start a war to-day just to gain an elec- 
tion. 

Pinkerton ! Protection ! 

“ Yes, protected enough we should be by this 
time. 

When millions are breadless in our bounteous 
clime, 

Where never should have flourished the free- 
booting section. 

Pinkerton ! Protection ! 


Among the Tramps. 125 

“They peopled Chicago with hungry Socialists, 
And Pennsylvania reeks with bloody Anarchists. 
What say you, Harrison } What say you, Morton } 
Pinkerton ! Protection ! 

“ Who to jobs and monopolies always have 
pandered ? 

And who in our midst raised the blood-red 
standard } 

Will Morton disclose ? No, he has an objection. 
Pinkerton ! Protection ! ’ 

MORAL PROTECTION; 

OR, 

Salvation for Value Received. 

‘‘To do good without hope of fee or 
reward is hardly satisfactory to most of the 
so-called Christian leaders of to-day. Some 
say, ‘ Do good works, that you may earn 
your salvation.’ Others say : ‘ The blood of 
Christ has redeemed you • all you need is to 
believe, no matter what else you may do 
or not do.’ Others combine a little of both 
prescriptions. 


126 


Among the Tramps. 


“ In all cases there is a kind of trade or 
value received in exchange for the shadow 
of a future something. In all cases man 
manages to put his God on a lower level 
than any decent human being. A man that 
allows himself to be bribed for favors is, 
with right, generally despised ; how much 
more a God, a Father, who does not seem to 
care for his own children except for value 
received ? The boodle trick seems to be as 
old as the world. 

“This supremely Jewish idea, that, as 
you have to pay man for his services, so 
nothing could be obtained from God with- 
out also paying for it, was the cunning in- 
vention of ancient priestcraft. They loved 
fine fruit, roast meat, corn, oil, and wine, 
and persuaded the people that those very 
articles were just such as were wanted by 
the Almighty, and, as He of course was en- 
titled to the premises, the cream, the very 
first of all kinds, it is exactly what they got 
always. On certain occasions, of course, 


Among the Tramps. 


127 


a part of the offering was publicly burned 
or ‘libated,’ with appropriate ceremonies 
for show, to satisfy the fools that some part 
of the sacrifice was actually offered, and not 
all devoured by the priesthood and their 
children. 

“ In order to awaken a wholesome fear, 
a hope of some extraordinary things to 
come had to be invented, for, as Milton well 
remarks, ‘Where no hope is left, there is 
no fear.’ 

“ That sublimely ridiculous idea that God 
has to be bribed, satisfied, atoned, reconciled 
by sacrifices, vows, churches, chapels, altars, 
etc., has caused, and is still causing, more 
misery and crime than is generally conceded. 
The death of Abel is the first striking exam- 
ple of it, and the priestly historian, whoever 
he might have been, was very careful to note 
that God’s wrath is not of the red-hot kind 
with free-givers of offerings, since Cain, the 
murderer of his only brother, is merely con- 
demned to travel and given a safe-guard in 


128 ^ Among the Tramps. 

the shape of a sign upon his brow, that no- 
body dare kill him. How many other trav- 
ellers since that time would gladly have 
availed themselves of such a universal pass ! 
But they had offered no sacrifice, and killed 
no brother, you know. 

It is to be hoped that the railroad man- 
agers and custom-house officers of the 
world will remain satisfied with the usual 
bribes, and will not insist upon the fratricide 
as a necessary prerequisite for the granting 
of a pass. 

“ This religious tariff was very moderate, 
being in all ages generally limited to lo per 
cent, or one tenth of all the products ; while 
our ‘protective tariff’ averages nearly 50 
per cent. One tenth was enough to save 
the souls and satisfy greedy priests, but one 
half will to-day hardly reach to satisfy the 
appetite of your infant Yankee robber. 

“ From the offering of a few of the best 
fruits of the land upon the alter, to the 
bleeding victims — doves, lambs, calves, and 


Among the Tramps. 


129 


steers — it took but one step, and a further 
one to the sacrifices of children and captives. 
Even Abraham is one day preparing to 
slaughter his only son, and, many centuries 
later, Christ, having been executed by a mob, 
is at once jumped at as the necessary victim 
for the grand final bloody atonement. 

“ Think for a moment of a father bribing 
himself by allowing the murder of his son ! 
think of a God of mercy and love allowing 
His innocent and beloved Son to be killed 
to satisfy His justice! 

“ How can injustice satisfy justice ? crime 
satisfy virtue ? murder satisfy love ? 

Suppose that I were the Almighty God, 
and had created for my own satisfaction a 
houseful of little sun-systems and planets 
of the size of small peas, and peopled their 
little surfaces with millions upon millions of 
microscopic animals of different forms and 
sizes, and among them a class of specially in- 
telligent bacilli, that were doing any amount 
of very cunning tricks and having no end of 


> 


130 Ainojig> the Tramps, 

fun, killing and eating all others, and even 
often slaughtering their own kin by the 
wholesale. Is it conceivable that I should 
order my only beloved son, if I have any, to 
be transformed into one of those micro- 
scopic animalculae, for the simple purpose of 
having him killed by them, to keep me from 
throwing one of my peas into the fire or to 
save from annihilation the few little animals 
that perchance ever happened to hear the 
strange story and to believe it? 

“And, supposing the thing had occurred 
on one of my smallest peas, as an absolute 
necessity, ‘ to satisfy my sense of justice,’ 
what of the other millions upon millions 
of peas, that I have created and peopled 
likewise? Would not that same sense of 
justice require millions upon millions of 
similar little atonements upon the other mil- 
lions of little worlds, or peas? 

“ What an absurd comedy, anyhow, if I 
am almighty, omnipotent ! 

“ If I had to repeat the atonement on every 


Among the Tramps. 131 

one of my peas, that beloved son of mine 
might get tired of that business in the long 
run, and perhaps exclaim one day : ‘ Dad, 
that moral protection scheme of yours is a 
humbug after all. I pay the full tariff with 
my life-blood and it does not seem to do a 
bit of good. Selfish greed is on top worse 
than ever. These Yankee sharks, with the 
world’s reputation of being my strictest fol- 
lowers, still continue to rob the poor and to 
slaughter the innocents as if nothing had 
happened. They say that I paid the duty 
and penalty for all their sins and that they 
believed it, that being the only condition we 
put in the bargain, and that ends that busi- 
ness. Being thus protected, they claim 
license as freebooters against all others, and 
who is going to stop them? ’ 

“ I might get tired, myself, of creating and 
recreating millions upon millions of Judases, 
Pilates, Caiaphases, and such unsavory vil- 
lains, and soon get ashamed of myself for 
doing no better. Is not the Creator respon- 


> 


132 Among 't/ie Tra 7 ?tps, 

sible for his creations and creatures? By 
what somersault of logic will any one prove 
the reverse? 

‘ Or,^is perhaps that atonement made upon 
one of my smallest peas and unknown to all 
others, sufficient for all? And, if sufficient, 
even when unknown to most of them, where 
comes the faith part of it ? 

“ Ha ! that old atonement theory is noth- 
ing but an absurd offspring of the immod- 
erate vanity and asinine ignorance of men ; 
that same old vanity and ignorance that 
held our little planet for the grand centre 
and final aim of creation ; that same vanity 
and ignorance that looked upon the stars as 
so many lights for our special benefit like 
wax tapers in a ball-room ; that same vanity 
and ignorance that created, in imagination, 
gods, fairies, and goblins for the special ser- 
vice of those most important animals, men ; 
that same vanity and ignorance that shed 
torrents of human blood, slaughtered, cruci- 
fied, and burned at the stake, because of a 


Among ihe Tramps. 


133 

slight variation in religious or political be- 
lief ; that same vanity and ignorance that 
invented witches, ghosts, hell, and the Devil 
to scare nervous women and frail children ; 
that same vanity and ignorance that turned 
a most unjust and infamous crime, the cruci- 
fixion of Jesus, into a divine necessity ; that 
ever handy argument of tyrants and creed 
of slaves. 

“ Vanity and ignorance ! 

‘‘Talk to me about the power of virtue 
and knowledge ; it is all humbug. Open 
the history of mankind at any page you 
please : vanity and ignorance always take the 
cake. It is so much easier to believe, than 
to learn or to know. 

“ Besides, men are so constructed that, if 
nobody will cheat them, they absolutely in- 
sist upon doing it themselves. 

“They make such a big fuss about Jesus 
Christ dying for the whole human family. 
With a due deference to His most noble and 
eminent qualities, I fail to see anything 


134 


Among the Tramps^ 




specially great about that. Thousands, mil- 
lions of people have died for others — for their 
parents, for their children, for their families, 
for this or that idea — even animals will die in 
defence of their offspring. Very probably 
some poor devil of a soldier is every day 
dying for what he loves to call his country, 
his king, or his emperor. How many fire- 
men of our cities, miners, or railroad-men 
die at their post of duty, that others’ lives 
may be saved or made comfortable — and not 
much noise about it, either? Very few of 
them, too, have any positive hope of future 
reward, and still they cheerfully die for 
others. 

“What is life, anyhow? Is it worth so 
much? We all must die to-day or to- 
morrow. But to die for others — still more 
for all others — that is a privilege to be 
jealous of for all eternity. 

“Let the Jews come around to-morrow 
and crucify me, if they choose ; I am ready to 


Among the Ti'ai7ips. 


135 


lay down my life for a much less price than 
the salvation of the whole world. 

“ Would it not be worth while to die, for 
instance, for peace on earth and good-will* 
among men, in fact, and not in theory alone 
as heretofore ? 

“ Or for the disarmament of all standing 
armies ? 

“ For the abolition of all tariffs? 

For the limitation of the right of inherit- 
ance to $5000? 

“ For the limitation of fee-simple to the 
size of a grave, 4 by 6 ? 

“ For the abolition of wages, strikes, and 
litigation ? 

For the establishment of a national soup 
bureau at every church in the land, without 
protection or monopoly of pews by rich 
people, as now, if you please? 

“ For the establishment of the U. S. of 
Europe, or of the world ? 

“You smile; what is the matter with 
you ? I am a tramp.” 


136 


Among the Tramps. 


MY PRAYER. 

“ I am a tramp and a pauper, ’tis true ; and 
I do not know but I should thank Thee for 
it, O Lord, from the bottom of my heart. 
Others, less lucky, build xostly cathedrals, 
churches, and chapels, where they assemble 
at the sound of bells and the music of or- 
gans, to thank Thee that they have riches, 
lands, palaces, houses, mines, factories, bank 
and railroad stocks, position, and honors— 
great blessings, they call them. 

“ Like that other tramp, that other Son 
of Thine (for are we not all Thy children ?), 
I have no home and no place to lay my 
head ; I am a stranger and a pilgrim on this 
earth, knowing not whence I came nor 
whither I am going. I am a tramp. 

I was not asked when to be born ; I shall 
not be asked when to die. I am in Thy 
hands; do with me what Thou pleaseth. 
Give me Thy wisdom, and learn me to un- 
derstand Thy w^onderful ways. 


Among the Tra??ips. 


137 


“ Why, O God, hast Thou given me the 
heart of a prince^ with the purse of a beg- 
gar ? 

“ Why hast Thou filled the miser with 
riches and the poor with compassions ? 
Why, after nineteen hundred years of 
boasted Christianity, is not every man a 
brother ? Why is not every woman a sister 
of charity? Why is not every house a 
refuge of peace ? Why is not every church 
an asylum for the poor? Why should I 
seek Thee under peaked roofs, among var- 
nished pews and painted cheeks, when even 
there they must confess that Thou lovest 
only the humble and lowly ? 

“ How can I pray, like others, ‘ Our 
father, which art in heaven,’ when I know 
that Thou art not in heaven, but every- 
where, and that Thou dwellest even in the 
hearts of many of those hated foreign pau- 
pers? Or ‘hallowed be Thy name,’ when I 
do not know that name ? I call Thee 
‘ Father,’ can I give Thee a sweeter name ? 


138 Among the Tramps, 

What is more to be hallowed there? Art 
Thou susceptible to bribe or flattery ? 

“ How can I pray, ‘ Thy kingdom come ’ 
as if Thou were not the only King and Su- 
preme Ruler? Who else reigneth, I’d like 
to know? Or, ‘Thy will -be done an earth 
as it is in heaven,’ as if anything could be 
or was ever done against Thy will here or 
there? Or, ‘Give us this day our daily 
bread,’ as if we had to remind Thee of what 
Thou art already doing? For, are not the 
hairs of our head counted, and even the 
sparrows not forgotten? 

“ How can I pray, ‘ Forgive us our tres- 
passes as we forgive those that trespass 
against us,’ as if I was to show Thee, O 
Lord, how nice we do the thing, to induce 
Thee to do the same by us ? Oh, what a 
shameful plea ! Learn me rather to forgive, 
that I may also hope to be forgiven myself. 
Or, ‘ Lead us not into temptation ?’ on the 
contrary, do so, but by all means learn and 
help us to surmount it victoriously, like 


Among the Tramps. 


139 


brave and true little men. ‘ Deliver us from 
evil this I can heartily indorse, for it is the 
inmost cry of every suffering creature. 

‘‘ Deliver us from the evil of Protection, 
that robs fifty-nine millions of people to en- 
rich less than one million of men already 
rich. 

“ Learn me too feel and to know that 
selfish greed is an abomination in Thy eyes, 
and that the pauper laborers of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa are our brethren, just as 
well as Jay Gould, Vanderbilt, or Morton, 
and just as well when dwelling across the sea 
as after they have been imported into this 
country by greedy corporations. 

“ Learn me to know good from evil and 
to discern the hypocrite from the true, and 
guard me specially from that ever present 
sneak-thief that is continually picking our 
pockets, while repeatedly pointing at the 
‘ rebel ’ in the South, or the ‘ Pauper Labor,’ 
on the other side of the pond. 

“ Give us more light, O God. I seek Thy 


140 


Among the Tramps. 


truth from early morn till late in the night, 
help me find it, for even the wisest of men 
have surrounded it with cobwebs of pro- 
found obscurity. Nearer to Thee, my God, 
for I have no one else, no parents, no family, 
no wife, no children, no friend but Thee. I 
am a tramp.” 


Among the Tramps, 


141 


PROFESSOR TRUMP’S TALE. 

A WESTERN MANUFACTURER. 

“You’ll be certainly astonished, boys, if 
I tell you that I was once one of those 
protected manufacturers so often mentioned 
this evening. 

“ I received a good mercantile education 
in the city of New York, and, anticipating 
Horace Greeley’s advice, came out West to 
grow up with the country. I located not 
many hundred miles from this spot, in a 
wealthy community, where I found a very 
refined society, and married the daughter of 
a well-to-do old fellow, who made me a pres- 
ent of $10,000 on the day of our wedding. 

“ I had a little money of my own, and 
bought a flourishing wool-factory about the 
end of the war, considering it a splendid 


142 


Among the TramJ>s. 


bargain. The tariff had just been in force a 
few years, and was about to be raised some 
on wool and woollen goods. Everybody was 
agreeing that, in consequence, I was bound 
to make a fortune in a» very short time. 

“ After repeated family consultations, two 
brothers-in-law of mine, both having married 
sisters of my wife and received each the 
same dower as I, concluded to enter into 
partnership with me and enlarge the busi- 
ness. The one was a physician already in 
fair circumstances, with a large practice, a 
nice residence, some of the best located real- 
estate in the suburbs, and any amount of 
notes, mortgages, and money in bank ; the 
other was one of the leading merchants, 
owning, besides his store and residence, sev- 
eral valuable farms in the vicinity. They 
put in about $30,000, besides what I had 
already in the concern. Somehow or an- 
other, Protection did not seem to protect me 
a bit ; my goods were always undersold, and 
I actually met with continuous losses. 


Amon^ the Tramps. 


143 


“ Never did I work harder in my life. My 
partners insisted that I should spend a sea- 
son East, in a similar establishment, to be 
thoroughly initiated in all the fine tricks o-f 
the trade. I did so, and, when I returned, 
they put in another $30,000 in the enterprise, 
and I borrowed from my father-in-law to 
'keep in line with them. The tariff on wool- 
lens had just been considerably augmented, 
and there was no longer a doubt that we 
must now succeed. I lived as economically 
as possible, and so did my partners ; in fact, 
they never had stinted themselves to such 
an extent before. Our working capital 
being soon exhausted, they mortgaged all 
they had to keep the mills afloat. A few 
years more and they were both bankrupt. 
Their private property hardly reached to 
satisfy secured debtors ; others got nothing. 

Unable to stand the disgrace, the mer- 
chant disappeared West with his entire 
family, and has never been heard from. The 
doctor died quite mysteriously shortly after- 


144 


Among the Tramps, 


wards. I always suspected that he killed 
himself by slow degrees in a way known 
only to himself ; but it remained a suspicion. 

“ I was left alone . with the factory and 
machinery mortgaged for double its value, 
and no money to run it. ' Creditors did not 
trouble me ; on the contrary, everybody 
seemed anxious to help me. I must confes's 
that these brave Western people were ac- 
tually so generous that they made up a 
purse to help me out of scrapes. Every- 
body seemed to like me, in spite or because 
of my misfortunes. I jogged along with as 
little success as ever, and was about giving 
up the ghost when I met a young German, 
raised in the same business, who had just 
landed with a very nice little pile of money. 
He was a splendid manager, and had his 
trade at his finger’s ends. I made a clean 
breast of my sad experiences, hiding noth- 
ing from him. He looked at it this way, he 
looked at it that way, and, after much con- 
sideration, came to the positive conclusion 


Among the Tra7nps. 


145 


that, with a tariff of 85 per cent, as it was 
then, the enterprise must succeed if prop- 
erly managed, and that he proposed to do 
himself, by going, right away, in partnership 
with me. 

'‘We put in new, improved machinery, and 
both worked like beavers, living so economi- 
cally that even our friends and neighbors 
were passing cute remarks about our greedi- 
ness and love of money. 

“Two years more of ‘ Protection’ cleaned 
us out ; but our conduct had been so straight 
and proper that our credit was good yet. 
The local bank, conducted by gentlemen of 
more generosity than business sense, under- 
took to save us and advanced another 
$30,000. Where it went, I don’t really know. 
It seemed to float away, dwindle, and vanish 
like smoke in the air, leaving nothing behind. 
We came mighty near bursting that bank 
then and there, for they were still willing to 
advance us some more funds. But I called 


146 Avwng the Tramps, 

a halt — I had enough. We turned all we had 
over to the bank and quit. 

“That identical business had been suc- 
cessful — on a small scale, to be sure — before 
the war, with no govermental assistance ; and 
now, with a tariff averaging 80 per cent, 
during twelve years of Protection we had 
swamped over $100,000 and made a failure 
of it, having nothing in the world to show for 
the out-lay except perhaps half a dozen 
bankrupt families, a few premature graves, 
and lots of disappointed and deluded friends. 

“ I inquired about and found that it was 
the same all over the West, where every 
small factory had been compelled to suc- 
cumb. 

“ My partner, such a model young man as 
he had been, lost all courage ^and went to 
drinking. 

“ My dear little wife took in sewing for a 
living, any I started North in search of a 
situation, that I have not found yet ; neither 
do I ever expect to find any. One cold 


Among the Tramps. 


147 


morning I read in the papers that my wife 
had died a few days after my departure, and 
had been buried at the expense of a few 
charitable friends. That settled my hash. 
We had no children ; otherwise I might have 
braced up and concluded to work for them, " 
or at least to devote my remaining days to 
their welfare. God had decided differently. 
Victims enough for one family. 

“ Such is life — yesterday a hopeful, wealthy, 
happy young man ; to-day a desperate tramp.” 

HOW PROTECTION ACCOMPLISHED IT. 

“To tell the truth, boys, I always thought 
that I was no fool, and people took care to 
tell me so ; but I be dogged if I could under- 
stand it. I studied and studied, and the 
more I studied the less I seemed to know. 

I might have lived and died several times, if 
that were possible, without ever solving that 
mystery if chance had not come to my assist- 
ance a couple of years ago. 

“ I was in Chicago ; got scooped in by the 


148^ Among the Tramps. 

cops and given twelve hours to leave the 
city. There had been a big fire the day be- 
fore among some immense wholesale stores ; 
and, as I passed along the street, they were 
clearing up and carting away piles of rub- 
^ bish — charred remains of shelving, boxes, and 
papers. I picked up a letter, partly soaked 
in black mud ; opened it ; read it once, read it 
twice, and nearly fainted on the spot. What 
do you think it contained ? I know it by 
heart. Listen : 

“‘Headquarters of the United States 
Woollen-shark’s Trust. 

( Confidential^ 

August, 1867. 

“‘Gentlemen: Please find inclosed re- 
vised price-list of woollens as agreed by the 
Eastern Woollen-Mills Association. 

“‘You will notice a slight advance on 
former prices, to offset which we offer you, 
as a special inducement, a discount of 50 per 
cent on all goods sold and shipped to cities 


Among the Tramps. 149 

and towns within the radius of 20 miles from 
any Western wool-factory, to enable your 
customers to undersell the local concern. 

‘ ‘ This reduction to remain in force until 
the said factory is definitively closed, and for 
six months thereafter, when a discount of 25 
per cent will be allowed for the following 
year, to enable you and your customers to 
gradually return to schedule prices. 

“ ‘ Our special agents shall call on you twice 
a year to verify and check such special ac- 
counts. 

“ ‘ It is unnecessary to remind you that it 
is in your interest, as well as in ours, to keep 
this strictly confidential. 

“ ‘ Awaiting your early orders, we remain, 

“ ‘ Yours truly, 

“ ‘ Tariff Shark, President.’ 

“ That letter was a big lantern to me, I tell 
you. I saw it all at once. I saw also that 
the wholesale slaughter of so many hundreds 
of small concerns had contributed in no small 


Among the Tramps. 


150 

degree to the financial depression and ruin of 
so many hundreds of Western communities ; 
and that, at the same time, the process, if 
successful, had also been quite expensive and 
costly for the Eastern combination, and did 
in a manner explain and excuse their persis- 
tent efforts for the retention of the high tariff. 
Unnatural and forced measures generally act 
as boomerangs against their own inventors. 

“ The high tariff, in shutting out the com- 
petition of English, German, French, and 
Dutch cloth and woollens, made a combine 
possible ; and thus, what was apparently insti- 
tuted to benefit the Western woollen manu- 
facturers, caused their ultimate ruin. 

“ I see also very plain that, in this our 
Great Free Republic, our own government 
has become, nolens volens, the involuntary 
associate and tool of an army of Shylocks 
and robbers. 

“‘Trusts are private affairs, with which 
nobody has any particular right to interfere,’ 
says the plumed clown — of course. One, 


Among the Tramps, 


151 

two, three ! now you see it ; one, two, three ! 
now you don’t/’ 

AN INTERMEZZO. 


“I know now, why they call you ‘Professor,’ ” 
said Slim Jim: “you talk like a book, and 
even mix some Latin morsels with it. I must 
admit that your very concise story is quite 
remarkable ; but people won’t believe it — not 
even in the town where it all happened before 
their very eyes. I know my Republican 
friends. We just ask them, ‘Who would 
believe a Democrat? and that settles it. 
Even if some one should insist, and remark, 
I was there myself, and saw it with my own 
eyes,’ we need only to reply, ‘ Hush up, 
keep quiet ! you are hurting the party,’ and 
the fellow will go to the next corner and 
swear it was all a Democratic campaign lie. 

“ And now to your Latin. I went to col- 
lege, myself, and remember one of the boys 
drawing, on the first blank page of his Virgil, 


J52 


Among the Tramps. 




a gallows with a man suspended from it and 
the following stanza : 

‘ Hie vides Johnny hanging, 

Qui librum not returning. 

If Johnny redivisset, 

To the gallows non inviset.’ 

“ How is that for high Can you beat 
that, Pat?” 

“ I do not know much about Latin,” re- 
plied Pat, shortly ; “ but if you care to hear 
an Irish song, Pll give it to you.” 

“All right. Go ahead. Lets hear it” 
was the answer, and, with a splendid baritone 
voice and deeply felt sentiment, Pat intoned 
the following : 

“ ‘ ril seek a four-leav’d shamrock 
In all the fairy dells, 

And, if I find the charmed leaves, 

Oh, how I’ll weave my spells ! 

I would not waste my magic might 
On diamond, pearl, or gold ; 

For treasures tire the weary sense — 

Such triumph is but cold. 


Among the Tramps. • 153 

But I would play th’ enchanter’s part 
In casting bliss around ; 

Oh, not a tear nor aching heart 
Should in the world be found.’ ” 

And all four joined, repeating, in chorus, 
with increased feeling : 

“ ‘ Oh, not a tear nor aching heart 
Should in the world be found.’ ” 

The angels in heaven, if there are any, 
must have listened with bated breath and 
looked down with wonderful emotion at the 
four despised Pariahs of the proud American 
civilization, in tattered rags but with hearts 
of gold, praying, in their simple, sweet song, 
that — 

“ ‘ Not a tear nor aching heart 

Should in the world be found.’ ” 

After the echoes of the chorus, had slowly 
died away in the depth of the nearest forest, 
silence reigned for a few moments, as if 
every one was passing in review the feelings 
aroused in his breast by Pat’s beautiful song. 


154 • Among the Trafnps. 

Slim Jim was the first to break the spell, by 
exclaiming, 

“Give us your hand, Pat Shorty; your 
singing has wonderfully affected me. I 
feel like crying, and shouting for joy at 
the same time. If you' have not found the 
‘ four-leav’d Shamrock’ yet, you must be 
next to it as a magician, sure. And now, I 
would like to hear what Jake Trueheart is 
thinking about just this very minute.” 

“ What I was thinking about,” said Jake, 
as if awakening from a far-away dream, 
“what I was thinking about? Well, I was 
just thinking of my mother and of the last 
birthday of mine, that I spent with her, 
when she presented me with a pretty little 
album, on the first page of which she had 
written something over her dear little signa- 
ture, and I was trying to remember the very 
words. It is a long, long time, many, many 
years ago, and I saw it all plain before my 
eyes in full reality just now. Let me see. 


Among the Tramps. 


155 


Oh, I have it. Here is what she wrote in 
soft little characters : 

“‘For my Boy: 

Do scorn to scorn, 

Do hate to hate, 

Do love to love ; 

But fear to fear 
Aught but Thy God.’ ” 

Oh, ho ! ” said Pat ; “ no wonder, if your 
mother wrote that for you. That explains 
much that was unexplained yet. You must 
have followed in her steps rather early, for 
that is just you, word for word.” 

“ Ta, ta, ta ! far from the mark,” retorted 
Jake. “ Often, I concede, have I tried to en- 
grave those sentences upon the walls of my 
heart, but, alas ! how often do I find myself 
caught up by some uncontrollable forces, that 
involuntarily carry me back where I do not 
want to go. Oh, that some one would unfold 
to me the mysterious laws of Nature that 
bind the flesh to the spirit or the soul to the 
body ! Professor, won’t you have the kind- 


‘ 156 


Among the Tramps. 


ness to go on and to let us hear something 
more about your very interesting experi- 
ences?” 

“ With much pleasure,” saidTrump. “ Pass 
me the grog, if you please ; and, since you in- 
sist on calling me ‘ Professor,’ you shall have 
a regular lecture, and, my regards all around, 
here it is : 

THE LAW OF CONTRASTS. 

“ Living in open air, as I do, I have occa- 
sion to see and admire many things in na- 
ture that escape the observation of most 
men. In the brook, on the edge of the lake, 
in the swamp, on the hill, in the forest, 
among- the rocks I could spend ten lives, if 
I had them, in reading the grand book of 
God’s works, and never tire of learning its 
sublime revelations. 

“ Thus, for instance, I perceive every- 
where a great law of extremes, contrasts, or 
compensation, that might be feebly com- 
pared to a pair of scales, the swinging of the 


Among the Tramps. 


157 


pendulum, or to electric and magnetic poles. 
Our whole life is passed between extremes. 
The earth has two opposite poles ; the 
mathematical line and every stick, two ends ; 
optics has light and darkness ; caloric, heat 
and cold ; chemistry, two principal groups 
of alkalies and acids ; dynamics, gravitation 
and centrifugal force ; living organisms, con- 
traction and relaxation ; theology, God and 
Devil ; justice, right and wrong ; morality, 
virtue and vice ; wisdom, good and evil ; 
politics, liberty and law ; ethics, right and 
duties ; men, animals and plants, two oppo- 
site sexes, etc. 

Everybody knows that there is a certain 
affinity or co-relationship between extremes, 
that causes them to attract or repulse each 
other,and, under certain circumstances — prob- 
ably when properly adapted according to a for 
mula yet unknown to us — to join, mix, blend, 
or melt in such a manner that new forms, 
new substances, even new individualities are 
created, such as the colors of the prism, 


Among the Tramps. 


158 

the many valuable combinations of chem- 
istry, the fruits and seeds of plants, the eggs 
and germs of animals, etc. 

I see some of you smiling and saying to 
yourselves, ‘ Look at the foolish old tramp. 
How can he combine the extreme ends of 
the mathematical Ime of a stick and give 
us new forms to contemplate?’ Hold on, 
boys ; nothing is easier than that. Look at 
both ends of the line curving equally in the 
same plane until they meet ; what have we 
now? The circle, a most useful and beauti- 
ful figure of geometry. A stick curved in 
the same manner gives us the hoop — a most 
useful article also, the parent of the wheel, 
that acknowledged emblem of civilization. 
I might go on and show that a slight devia- 
tion of plane in the curving process gives us 
the spiral spring, the screw, and other 
equally useful contrivances. 

“ But what of right and wrong, good and 
evil, God and the Devil, are you going to 
say? Qh, now, what do we know but 


Among the Tramps. 


159 


that they are moral synonyms of light and 
darkness? Can we conceive light and no 
shadow ? Our experience is that the stronger 
the light, the darker the shadow. What is 
shadow but the absence of light, and evil 
but the absence of good? What do we 
know but that evil is the necessary shadow 
of good ? 

“And still what beautiful combinations 
light and shadow produce in a thousand 
pictures every day before our eyes ! 

“ As to God and the Devil, the word God 
is evidently related to good ; while for the 
true origin of the word Devil, cut off three 
times the first letter and you have it, — devil, 
evil, vile, ill, — showing that it was originally 
intended to convey the idea of a diseased 
moral state only, opposed to good or well- 
being; while Deus and Deuce have the 
identical same root. 

“ The Peruvians had a distinct dualism : 
the Sun, God of life and good; Supay, 
God of death and evil, Th^ Aztecs wor- 


i6o 


Among the Tramps, 


shipped two brothers : Good and Evil, 
Haitzilopotchli and Tetzkkllipoka. The 
Iroquois made . Good and Evil brothers. 
The Greenlanders make them male and 
female, husband and wife. Bjelbog and 
Czernebog are the Good and Evil of the 
Slavs. 

“ The Pagans of Madagascar believe in 
both, but worship only Evil. Here is a 
translation of one of their queer hymns: 

“ ‘ Zamhor and Niang created the world. 

To Thee, O Zamhor, we offer no prayer — 

The God of all Goodness, Thou needest none ; 
But Niang, the Evil, to him we bow — 

Must soothe and must soften the wicked Niang. 

“ ‘ O Niang, evil and mighty, we pray thee. 

Turn from us all the blast of the thunder; 

Let not the sea overflow from its deeps ; 

Leave us the gifts that Zamhor has given. 

Great art Thou, Niang, the ruler of Evil.’ 

There is some sense in that. We ought 
to send our preachers to Madagascar to 
study logic in theology. 


Among the Tramps. i6i 

“ The true God of the thinker is above all 
these conceptions— neither the God of Good, 
nor of Evil, but the Supreme Creator of 
both, the First Source of the Eternal Laws 
that govern nature. 

“ Extremes meet, is the popular acknowl- 
ment of the workings of the law of con- 
trasts ; but before, until, and while they meet, 
continual vibrations or alternate pulsations 
(of attractive and repulsive forces) seem to 
be exerting themselves in a sort of compen- 
satory way, towards a perfect equilibrium 
or rest, that is never but momentarily at- 
tained to be soon again disturbed. 

“ Take two chemical substances of differ- 
ent classes and, having the affinity required, 
throw them together. You have a new sub- 
stance resembling neither of the others, and 
with entirely new properties. Sometimes 
the new creation is a slow process of amal- 
gamation ; sometimes it is instantaneous and 
accompanied with dreadful explosion. Of- 
ten the compensating vibrations, heretofore 


i 62 


Among the Tramps, 


mentioned, are interfered with by outside 
influences either beneficially or adversely; 
often they appear ilLcalculated or over- 
reaching the aim ; sometimes they seem 
even to elbow each other madly in turbu- 
lent, rushing waves, and quite often what 
we please to call ‘ fatal perturbations ’ oc- 
cur. 

^‘Volumes could be filled with the subject 
without exhausting it, for that great law lies 
at the very foundation of selection and evo- 
lution, and sexual love is but only one of its 
mysterious and most potent manifestations. 

‘‘We admire so-called instinct in animals, 
and pretend to believe that they are de- 
prived of intelligence. Our surmise is evi- 
dently often wrong, but instincts are in most 
cases simply spontaneous manifestations of 
this law. It is claimed that, for instance, in 
the selection of a mate, sexual love, actu- 
ated by a wild, pure instinct, that will not 
down, in direct opposition to all usual calcu- 
lations or social requirements of the world, 


Among the Tramps. 


163 


furnishes, as a rule, a superior class of off- 
spring than the conventional marriages of 
the day. 

“ And here, as usual, the doctors disagree. 
Some claim that the laws of heredity ought 
to be fathomed down to the very bottom, 
and when the adaptability of opposite tem- 
peraments is scientifically proved and estab- 
lished, no person should be allowed to marry 
any one but his or her exact physical and 
intellectual counterpart, as a specially se- 
lected board of physicians should direct or 
permit. 

Others claim that the natural instincts 
placed by God in the breast of every being 
are safer guides of a good selection, if al- 
lowed fair play, than the theoretical teach- 
ings of any man or set of men that seldom 
see any further than the end of their noses. 

‘‘ I claim that enlightened but absolute 
liberty is the proper adjunct of the law. 

‘‘ I have often seen the finest set of chil- 
dren raised in families where the parents 


164 


Among the Tramps. 


showed the most extraordinary contrasts in 
their physical and mental make-up. 

“ On the other side, how often do we meet 
with married couples of the same class and 
physical build, so very much alike, indeed, 
that everybody involuntarily exclaims, ‘ How 
nicely they do match.’ But they have no 
children — or, if any, only small, tender, etio- 
lated, short-lived weaklings. 

“The number of children dying before 
the age of ten is just fearful, — mortality 
due principally to the absurd fashions, cus- 
toms, and notions regulating our so-called 
lawful marriages. The slaughter of the in- 
nocents is daily going on, blindly and syste- 
mxatically planned before they are born. 
Not only the temperaments, sanguine, bil- 
ious, nervous, lymphatic, encephalic, etc., 
as they are commonly called, but bone sys- 
tems, large or small ; muscle systems, long 
and dry, or short and plump, and also the 
sexuality of persons (for there is such a 
thing as a masculine female or a feminine 


Among the Tramps. 165 

male) are seeking their natural contrast, 
adaptation, or affinity by the divine instinct 
called true love. But man, civilized man, 
that smart monkey, regulates everything 
for his selfish, greedy interest, and generally 
with fatal effect. And so it happens that 
ambition, wealth, rank, title, interest, a love 
of fine dresses, of luxury, of independence, 
anger, disappointment, want, necessity, 
duty, obligation, indebtedness, imitation, 
are the usual cursed motives of marriages. 

“ A woman who knows, says : ‘ When we 
are girls, boys never leave before midnight ; 
when we are married, husbands never re- 
turn before midnight. I suppose this is the 
law of compensation, and must be submitted 
to.’ 

“ In the domain of thoughts the same law 
prevails as in physical nature. The history 
of religious development is a continuous 
revelation of that law, and political progress 
is but a successive repetition of one extreme 
in conflict with another. 


i66 


Among the Tramps. 


“ The oppression of the American colonies 
dictated the Declaration of Independence. 
In France the excesses of the Reign of Ter- 
ror prepared the ground for the Napoleonic 
empire, while its own intemperance brought 
about a general reaction. 

“Slavery was guaranteed by the United 
States Constitution, and very few persons 
forty-odd years ago dared hope its early 
abolition. The slave-power knew it too well, 
became arrogant and overbearing, soon even 
pretending to dictate terms to the whole 
country, and, when things did not take a 
turn to suit it, took up arms and claimed 
the right, to withdraw from the Union. 
That settled it. The other extreme, here- 
tofore an insignificant minority, seemed to 
grow like a whirlwind, and in less than three 
years slavery was doomed — a thing never 
dreamt of before, not even by the so-much- 
praised Lincoln. 

“ Out of the conflict of both antagonistic 
elements the Union rose, more glorious and 


Among the Tramps. 167 

more powerful than ever — the wonder of 
modern times. 

“ Neither John Brown, nor Greeley, nor 
Wendell Phillips, nor Lincoln, nor their 
numerous followers, but Jeff Davis and his 
hot-blooded Southern associates, were the 
first true instigators of emancipation. 

“ Had they remained quite and moderate, 
they never could have been molested ; al- 
though very probably the slavery might 
have been abolished by slow degrees, perhaps 
by the Southerners themselves, but without 
the tremendous loss of life and property to 
both sides. 

I venture to predict that the refusal of 
Home Rule to Ireland will invariably culmi- 
nate in the overthrow of constitutional mon- 
archy in Great Britain. 

“ It is the same thing now with the high- 
tariff manufacturers. Their very best friends 
are the tariff-reformers and not the Chinese- 
Wall-builders of the Chicago convention. 
Some people seem to take a special delight 


i68 


Among the Tramps. 


in themselves, sharpening the knife that will 
some day cut their own throat. With the 
cheap labor that is imported to push aside 
our dissatisfied workingmen, came the An- 
archist, the Socialist, 'the Communist, spread- 
ing dangerous, wild, and contagious notions 
among the lower classes of the people, 
never thought of on this continent before. 

“ If ever Free-trade is established by the 
United States, it will be due only and solely 
to the unreasonably extreme advocates of 
Protection — Pig-iron Kelly and consorts. 

“ The near future may witness the most 
extraordinary combination of Protectionists, 
Prohibitionists, and Socialists, claiming in 
unison the right of the state to regulate, not 
only the sale (as is now done by the tariff), 
but the manufacture, of certain articles, and 
to prohibit them at pleasure (as is now done 
by Iowa and Kansas for beer, wine, and 
liquors) ; while, on the other hand, the old 
common-sense Democracy shall have again 
to fight for the freedom of the individual. 


Among the Tramps. 169 

Socialism in its most insidious form, 
corporations, stock associations, monopolies, 
pools, trusts are crowding individualism inch 
by inch out of modern society. Union 
Leagues, Knights of Labor, Trades Unions, 
Grand Army clubs — even churches and 
lodges of all sorts and denominations — are 
also forms of Socialism, and of the most 
dangerous kind, when meddling in politics. 

“ It is not so much what they do, or aim 
to do, that is pernicious ; for a great majority 
of their members are, without a doubt, in- 
dividually honest, patriotic, and well-mean- 
ing enough. But it is the natural result of 
their clannish association, a certain esprit 
de corps, the pride of closely bonded 
friends (we are all human), that is full of 
perils for the country. 

“ ‘ How can the Pope be coquetting with 
the Knights of Labor ? ’ Why not ? Do they 
not both aim to destroy the independence 
of individualism — the first as an end, the last 
as a means ? 


170 


Among the Tramps. 


“ Individuals have a heart or a soul 
to which you may appeal ; corporations, 
churches, lodges, jpools, trusts have none. 

“ Collective selfish greed and worship of 
the almighty dollar ^are adorning the altars 
of all these incipient forms of Socialism ; but 
the civilization of the heart is left too far 
behind. 

“ I like to find one, two, three good men : 
I do not care to meet an army of them. 
When men congregate into crowds, mobs, 
and Armies, they are too often apt to shout 
‘Hosanna’ to-day and ‘Crucify him’ to- 
morrow ; in most cases devoting their con- 
centrated energies to rob and murder at 
leisure — and the larger the mob, the more 
atrocious the murders and robberies. 

“ Society, taken as a mass, is too often 
wrong : it takes the individual to redeem 
the race. 

“We are probably on the threshold of a 
grand conflict between Socialism and Indi- 
vidualism. It may last some time, — several 


Among the Tramps, 17 1 

generations perhaps, — but, according to the 
great law mentioned, it may result in a new 
creation, possibly better than either of its par- 
ents, created itself for future conflicts in the 
grand progress of the human family, until 
the civilization of the heart shall be so far 
advanced that pure Anarchism, or no govern- 
ment at all, shall have become the end and 
result. 

“ Nine tenths of the evils of the world are 
caused by a disregard of this great law of 
contrasts and compensation. 

“To obtain comparative quiet, everything 
must be evenly counterbalanced, and one- 
sided extremes avoided. Perfect rest may 
then be properly relegated to the realms of 
paradise or of the grave, according to whether 
the mood of the thinker is inclined to be of 
the hopeful or of the cadaverous kind. 

“ The law being that one extreme attracts 
or calls for another extreme, moderation 
appears therefore to be the very essence of 
virtue. 


172 Among the Tramps. 

“A true gentleman, be he a king or a 
tramp, is a law unto himself, avoids extremes 
and cultivates moderation. 

“ Humbly kneeling before God, boldly 
standing before man, I am a tramp, and 
don’t you forget.” 

CONTINUOUS CHANGE IS LIFE. 

‘‘ A man cannot always work ; he must 
rest. Even a tramp cannot always rest and 
sleep ; he must stretch out and give himself 
some exercise, or he’ll be sure to feel un- 
comfortable. Every particle of our. bodies 
is changing continually, so that, at the end 
of every seven years, nothing is left of the 
old fellow of seven years ago. When we 
quit changing, we die; and death itself is 
but another change into the life and happi- 
ness of a lower class of animals — the worms 
that feed equally upon the wise and the fool. 

“The sun, the moon, the weather, the 
seasons — everything is changing daily, ac- 
cording to unchangeable laws; the most 


Among the Tra7nps. 


173 


sublime order is seemingly in continual dis- 
order. That dip of the earth’s axis upon 
the ecliptic is a mighty smart thing. None 
of our reverend priests, or preachers, or 
would-be world-benefactors could have in- 
vented it. 

“ They want everything stiff, straight, and 
square, you know. What a luck, that the 
Creator did not consult them ! 

“ It is astonishing how simple, how wise, 
and how harmonious all His arrangements 
are, while all human institutions are so fool- 
ishly and wickedly wrong ! 

“ While God’s nature shows us unmistaka- 
ble evidence of laws of continual, harmonious 
change and diversity, man, always anxious 
to improve upon his Maker, hankers after 
stability of governments, of creeds, and of 
social relations ; and, to prove the sanctity of 
his ignorance, he fails not to call as witnesses 
and authorities all the stupid and idiotic 
minds of past centuries. 

If man is not a monkey, or a descendant 


174 


Among the Tramps, 


of such, he has to prove it yet. I am often 
ashame^ of being a man, myself. Luckily I 
am not of the ordinary kind, if you please ; I 
am a tramp. 

“ We are lectured and sermoned to death 
about religious and political creeds, progress, 
Protection, Prohibition, etc.; and, when a 
smart speaker wants to prove his point, he 
recites, with great pathos, what a notable 
fool said some two or three thousand years 
ago, when the very smartest of men hardly 
knew anything worth knowing at all. And 
we are now called upon to wonder, pon- 
der, and admire the authorities, the sayings, 
of people that had not the remotest idea 
of cotton, sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, gunpow- 
der, printing, books, journals, steam-power, 
railroads, electricity, telegraphs, telephones, 
etc., — nice authorities, to be sure ! Thus 
are the intelligent minds of modern people 
chained to and by the venerated sing-songs 
of antiquated ignorance. No wonder that 
the result is unsatisfactory, and that a gen- 


Among the Tramps. 


75 


eral sentiment of doubt, distrust, and discon- 
tent pervades humanity. Poor mortal fools ! 
throw off your fetters and emancipate your 
generation. Return to Mother Nature, and 
read, yourself, with modern eyes, what she 
has to say. 

“ Society has often a hard time of it to 
adapt its laws and customs to the wants of 
the moment ; for arts and sciences progress 
much quicker than all laws and regulations. 
Thus it happens that we are quite often con- 
fronted ‘with time-honored, antiquated cus- 
toms and laws that have outlived their use- 
fulness, but are still so deeply rooted and ven- 
erated on account of old age that it seems a 
sacrilege and a blasphemy to express even 
a doubt of their continued adaptation or 
practicability. 

“ Look at the Treasury surplus and the 
tariff question. Everybody knows that the 
U. S. Government is too rich by about one 
hundred and thirty millions, and the great 
majority of the people too poor by several 


176 Among the Tramps. 

hundred millions. This seems to be a sim- 
ple problem upon which all fair-minded per- 
sons might as easily agree as that twice two 
makes four. But, no. Nearly one half of 
the people, an errtire political party, says 
emphatically: ‘No. The surplus shall not 
be lessened, neither shall the tariff. As ra- 
tional and justifiable as it may appear, we 
won’t allow that change.’ 

“ Would it not be just as good policy, after 
all, to assist them in driving the country to 
the hot place, and to shout, with the rabid 
Socialist : ^ Vogue la gallre. Aprh nous le 

deluge I 

“ But for the sensible thinker, the seeker 
after truth, there is no merit in following the 
procession and keeping in the ‘ groove, in 
which mediocrity is content to plod,’ for 
that requires no special effort of intellect or 
expense of thought ; but to quit the crowd 
and tramp through briars and rocky paths 
to higher summits, from whence a more 
extended view of the road can be obtained. 


Among the Tramps. 


177 


is the privilege of the independent mind, 
anxious to know less of rotten human insti- 
tutions and more of God’s nature and of His 
wonderful ways and laws. 

“ I drink every day with increased rapture 
trom that ever-changing, everlasting foun- 
tain. Here is to you. I am as happy as a 
big sunflower, if I am a tramp. 

“ ‘ Vanitas Vanitatum. 

“ From babyhood till now, in the winter of life, 
When ’that proud mind of mine should be so 
sharp and rife, 

Have I toiled so hard, much knowledge to attain, 
In vain? 

“ Did I wander in vain on Antiquity’s shore. 
Seeking a few bright gems among its wondrous 
lore. 

Clearing tons of rubbish for one of Wisdom’s 
grain. 

In vain ? 

“ Did I cram in my head English, Latin, and Greek, 
German, Spanish, and French the first honors to 
seek. 


i]S Among the T7' amps. 

Toiling like a beaver the first prizes to gain, 

In vain ? 

“ Did I fathom in vain the bowels of Nature, 
Studying her rocks and records in every feature. 
With nameless wonders astonishing my brain. 

In vain? 

“ Did I travel in vain among the nations of old ? 
Did I notice in vain the strange things they un- 
fold ? 

Lauding this, blaming that, to find it was all pain 
In vain? 

“ Ha! learning is no boon ; no happiness it brought. 
Wisdom is no comfort ; with sadness it is fraught. 
And knowledge is, I say with bitterness again. 

In vain I 

“ Have I lived in vain ? How sad who so believes ! 
As well match a rosebud with a bunch of dead 
leaves. 

Once a bright rose, perhaps, now dead, and then 
complain 

In vain I 

“ Honestly did I try to live an upright life. 
Stepping bold my own path, avoiding silly strife. 
Seeking justice and truth bravely to maintain, — 
In vain ! 


Among the Tramps. 179 

When kneeling before God, standing before dis- 
aster. 

Striving hard to follow in the steps of the 
Master, 

How often did I try the old faith to retain ? 

In vain ! 

What is faith, but a dream ? What is hope, but 
a sigh — 

A soul’s aspiration toward that unknown sky. 

Where good and truth should dwell ? A sigh, a 
dream retain ? 

In vain ! 

How often did I crave some grand deed to 
achieve ? 

Much good in secret do, that no one should per- 
ceive ? 

For a sublime idea my last blood’s drop to drain ? 

In vain ! 

Have I loved in vain my neighbor’s right to 
plead ? 

In paths of divine truth, their faltering steps to 
lead. 

Or their rough ways to mend with manners most 
urbane. 


In vain } 


i8o 


Among the Tramps. 


“ Everyman a brother — so said my mother dear. 
And, trusting her wisdom, I sought man without 
fear. 

To press him to my heart, and found in him — a 
Cain. 

In vain ! 


“ Tis hard to love in vain, ’tis hard in love to fail, 
Of a devoted heart the deep cells to unveil. 

To renounce all pleasures, from all joys to ab- 
stain. 

In vain ! 


“ Tis hard pure love to sow, and reap the fruits of 
hate ; 

To till a barren soil against a cruel fate ; 

By word, sweet song, and deed, to preach feelings 
humane ; — 

In vain ! 


“ Have I prayed in vain for understanding, health, 
For wisdom, and for knowledge, with their 
abounding wealth } 

My sighs, my sobs, my tears, my sorrows all re- 
main 

In vain ! 


Among the Tramps. i8i 

“ How often did I pray for rest, or for a moment’s 
ease ! 

How often did I pray my soul’s hunger to ap- 
pease ! 

My weary, wandering look seeks the turn in the 
lane 

In vain ! 


“ Oh, that there wds an ear my coniplaint to re- 
ceive ! 

Oh, that there was a heart my sadness to relieve 1 
Oh, that there was an eye my courage to sustain ! 
In vain ! 


“ Oh, that there was a hand to guide me through 
the night ! 

Oh, that there was an arm, bold, to sustain the 
right ! 

Oh, that there was a voice to cheer me in my 
pain ! 

In vain ! 

“The fool prays for wisdom, the sick prays for 
health ; 

The hungry one for meat or bread, the poor for 
wealth ; 


82 Ainofig the Trmnps. 

Many prayed for Garfield, and many prayed for 
Blaine; 

In vain. 

‘ A nation prays in vain for the life of old Abe: 

A mother prays in vain for her poor dying babe ; 

A sweetheart also prays for the soldierly swain ; — 
In vain. 

‘ They built for the martyr a monumental cave ; 

And pansies are blooming over the baby’s grave ; 

And the proud soldier-boy lies stretched on the 
plain ; — 

In vain ! 

‘ Inexorable Fates our destiny dictate ; 

We lament and we cry, despairing, desolate. 

That mysterious power do we try to restrain 
In vain. 

‘ 1 was brought into this world without knowing 
the reason why; 

And in a like mysterious way most surely I shall 
die. 

Where I shall land, don’t ask. 'Tis all, I see it 
plain. 


In vain. 


A)iiong the Tramps. 


183 

‘ I’m a straw fast running on the current of life. 
Dancing upon the floods, a sharer in their strife. 
How can a straw protest } How dare a straw 
complain } 

In vain. 

‘ That I live, that I die, nobody seems to care ; 
And the worlds move along, not asking for my 
fare. 

And I frown and I froth, rebellious and profane, 
In vain ! ’ ” 




THE END. 


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place in American lAtQxaXmQ.'''— Milwaukee, Wisconsin. i 

RENTS IN OUR ROBES. . 

By Mrs. Frank Leslie. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 60 

A brillant review of modern society and manners, by one of their most ml 
ponents. Sparkling sketches and essays of modern life, invested with all the cl 
wit, raillery, sentiment, and spontaneity which a cultured woman of the world n 
expected to bestow upon such a subject. “ Rem s in Our Robes ” is a book that helpi 
than it entertains ; and perhaps no better idea of its charm can be conveyed, tham 
Ing that the author has put a great deal of herself into the work. 

BELFOUD, CLABKE S CO., Ftvblishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO. ij 


iORIES OF THE MEN WHO SAVED THE UNION, 

icola, Stanton, Chase, Seward, Gten. Thomas, etc., with new portraits. 

ONN Piatt. 12mo., Cloth, gilt top, illustrated, $1.50. Paper covers, 
!5 cents. 

** This is one of the ablest books on the war, and will create a sensation.”— 

7ery few men had the opportunity of knowing the inside history of the war as well 
.Piatt.” — Courier^ New Haven, 

Irery word of the volume is thoroughly readable, and no one who begins it will lay 
{B without going to the end.” — TJie American, Baltimore. 

ANTI-POVERTY AND PROGRESS. 

[STER Frances M. Clare, the Nun of Kenmare. 1 vol., 12mo. Paper 
iovers, 50 cents. 

Ihegood sister alternately deals effective blows against Mr. George’s impracticabili- 
id urges upon the rich, alike ecclesiastical as lay, the inauguration of true anti-poverty 
ke top of society. * ♦ * The author evidently thinks religion more of a remedy 

ferty than Brooklyn Eagle. 

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALCOHOL. 

iOBERT Alexander Gunn, M.D. Square 32mo. Cloth, 40 cents. 

ftiere is much common sense in ‘ The Truth About Alcohol.’ The author is a well- 
^jlNew York physician, who has made a specialty of the subject of stimulants. He 
atrates by conclusive evidence that spirits are of great value in many cases, and that 
imperance advocates wilfully pervert the truth Increasing age brings with it less 
.ty for enduring mental strain and worry, and spirits act as a recuperative influence, 
■le is true in regard to taking of wine or liquors by brain-workers with their meals, 
don is aided, and the lassitude so frequently experienced is removed. The little book 
Ids a wide circulation, as it contains information vouched for by the best medical 
titles, both here and abroad, which is of great practical value.” — San Francisco 

" ROBERT ELSMERE. 

Vi' 

Humphrey Ward, author of “ Miss Bretherton,” etc. 12mo. Cloth, 
^ce, $1.25. 

'tte book is a drama in which every page is palpitating with intense and real life . It 
iHlistic novel in the highest sense of the word,” — Whitehall Review. 
iOomparable in sheer intellectual power to the best works of George Eliot. . . . 

iJBtionably one of the most notable works of fiction that has been produced in years.” 

i ^tsman. 

THE PRINCESS DAPHNE. 

1i. Cloth, $1.00. In Paper covers, illustrated by a remarkable and 
Imique drawing by E. Hamilton Bell, 50 cents. 

‘le heroine of this thrilling story is a Creole descended from two of the original 
!« of New Orleans. The story deals with phases of Bohemian life in New York and 
ijm; with love, mesmerism, death, transmigration, and reincarnation. It is told in an 
jpiised realistic fashion that reminds one of Daudet’s ” Sapho,” and it has a most 
| ng denouement. 

[[ or sale everywhere, or may be had of the Publishers on receipt of price, 
F)f postage, 

rBELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 

ICAGO, NEW YORK, and SAN FRANCISCO. 


rt'.D 


i 


i 


TARIFF BOOKS, ! 

« 

The Tariff on Imports into the United StI 

and the Free List, 

As contained in Act of March 3, 1883 ; als-, The Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty, and®! 
from the Navigation and Oleomargarine Acts. Indexed, I2mo. Paper covers, 25 ce» 
A most useful book. In a moment you can find the exact tax on any article im 
into the United States, and the names of everything on the free list. Invaluable to j 
and all interested in the great tariff question now so freely discussed. 


An Appeai to the American People as a Jt 


SPEECHES ON THE TARIFF, 

Delivered in the House of Representatives in the great debate, April 17-May 15 

SPECIALLY SELECTED FROM BOTH SIDES. 


Carefully Revised and Published by Authority. Compiled by WILLIAM G. TEK 
Large 12m o., Cloth, $1.00 ; Paper, 50 cents. 

The following is a list of the names of the Hon. Gentlemen whose speeches are j 
in the work. 


Hon. Mr. Mills, of Texas. 

“ Kelley, of Pennsylvania. 
“ Scott, “ 

“ Wilson, of West Virginia. 

“ McKinley, of Ohio. 


Hon. Mr. McMillin, of Tennessee. 
“ Butterworth, of Ohio. 

Cox, of New Yoix. 

“ Burrows, of Michigan. 
Reed, of Maine. 


Hon. Mr. Carlisle, of Kentucky. 


Special editions of not less than 2000 copies for campaign purposes made at j 
reduced prices. If required, all the Republican speeches can be had in a separate y 
or all the Democratic ones likewise. 


The Protective Tariff: What it does for 

BY GENERAL HERMANN LIEB. 

Fourth Edition, with Revisions and Additions. 12mo. Cloth, ^ 


THE PRESS UNANIMOUS IN ITS PRAISE. 

This book shows the practical effect of the Protective System upon the country, 
haps the most conspicuous feature of the book is its exact alignment with the mess 
President Cleveland. But for the fact that the General’s work was in print befo 
message was made public, it might be supposed he had written it to defend the Pres; 
position on the Tariff. 

The position of Mr. Blaine’s “ Twenty Years in Congress ” is taken up, his as8( 
upon the Tariff are analyzed, criticised, and made to furn'sh their own refutation. 

The arrangement of the subject is in a most convenient form, and renders what is r 
cbnsidered a most abstruse subject easy of comprehension. It would serve as a 
primer for the learner as well as a text book for the learned. 

For sale everywhere, or may be had of the Publishers on receipt of 
free of postage. 

BELFORD, CLARKE A CO., Fublishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO, 




THE POLITICS OP LABOR. 

( By Phillips Thompson. 1 voL, 13mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

“ This book will mark an epoch in American thought. It is fully up with the times. 
* * ♦ It is the prophet of the New Era.”— People, R. I. 

“ One of the most valuable works drawn out by current discussions on social and econ- 
omical questions, and one that is sure to take a high place in the permanent and standard 
literature of the times.— Rockland. 

I) This book is enlightening and inspiring; every thoughtful man and woman should 
I'tead it.” — Tribune, Junction City. 

I “ Mr. Thompson presents the whole question of land and labor reform as clearly as 
n jcould be desried. ’’—ifaii, Chicago. 


BANCROFT’S HISTORY OP THE COLONIZATION 
OP THE UNITED STATES. 

IliBy George Bancroft. Two vols in one. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, |1.50. 
' j “ Since Ranke’s death George Bancroft is the greatest living historian. The American 
'Citizen who has not read his history of the United States is a poor patriot, or an unfortu- 
nately ignorant person. We fear there are too manv of them, as there are of those who 
have never even read the constitution of their country. It is not too late for these delin- 
J quents to buy a copy of this great book, and learn something that will be of interest and 
“ profit the remainder of their lives.” — T’Ae Churchman. 


THE STORY OP MANON LESOAUT. 

I'From the French of L’Abbe Prevost. A new translatiofi, by Arthur W. 

j Gundry, from the French edition of 1753, with over 200 full-page and 

51 other illustrations by the great French artist, Maurice Leloir, and others, 

i Reproduced by photogravure, wood-engraving, and photo-engraving 
processes from the superb edition de luxe, published in Paris in 1885. 
4to. Cloth, extra gold and red, in a neat box, $3.00. [N, B. — The price 
of the French edition, with same engravings, is $20.] 

J PAINTERS OP THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 

" By Edith Healy. Illustrated by 25 original copperplate engravings of 
I choice masterpieces of the leading Italian painters, executed in the high- 
I est style of art by the famous French engraver, M. DeMare. Small 4to. 
f ! ij Richly bound, extra cloth, gold title and ornamentation, $5.00. Full 
^ morocco, $4.00. Cloth, school edition, $1.25. 

WASHINGTON IRVING’S 

4 LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

jsvols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols., 
12mo., half calf, $9.00. 

St To speafe at tbis late day in praise of Irving’s “ Life of Washington ” would be like 
^feainting marble or gilding refined gold. No American library, public or private, is com- 
■^plete without this work. This is a new edition, printed from new plates, at a very mode- 
irate price. 

LES MISERABLES. 

.iBy Victor Hugo. 1 vol., large 12mo., $1.50 ; the same on heavy paper in 3 
vols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50 ; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols., 

. 12mo., half calf, $9.00. Illustrated. . 

ffl “Les Miserables ” is universally admitted to be the great masterpiece of Victor Hugo, 
I that brightest literary light of modern France. This book, once carefully read wid never 
! be forgotten. The study of it is an education. 

' BELFORD, CLARKE S CO.y Fublishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 


BELFORD’S MAGAZINE 


BONN PIATT, Editor. 


I 


A COMPLETE COPYRIGHT NOVEL IN EACH NUMBER. 


More than two thousand newspapers have reviewed and com- 
mented favorably on the Magazine among them the following: 

“ Altogether the Magazine is full both of interest and promise.” — Chicago 
Herald. 

“ If the Magazine contained nothing besides the 100 pages of Elizabeth W. Bel- 
lamy s novel, ‘Old Man Gilbert,’ it would be worth more than its price. The story 
is of Florida life, and, in action, interest, humor, dialect, and portrayal of negro 
and Southern types, it deserves the highest rank among literary productions of the 
New South.”— C'Aicag'O Tribune. 

” Altogether the monthly seems likely to win very wide reading, and to deserve 
it quite as mach as some more pretentious elder sisters.’’ — Chicago Times 

“It is really a first-class publication both in matter and appearance.” — Chicago 
Journal. 

“ Belpo,rd’s Magazine offers in its first number * * * a long story or novel 
ette by a Southern writer, Mrs. Bellamy. This story is really above the average of 
magazine fiction, and it is far from needing the flattering letter with which the 
author of St. Elmo introduces it.”— iVl. Y. Tribune. 

“ Belpord’s Magazine has been wise enough to select the keenest and most 
slashing writer at its command. Col. Bonn Piatt, to edit it and to contribute to its 
pages. * * ♦ Such Republican contributors as Coates Kinney, one of whose 
stirring lyrics is woith the price of an entire volume.’’ — Springfield Begister. 

“American magazine literature has been substantially enriched by the opening i 
number of Belford’s new magazine.” — N. Y. Standard. 

“ The articles on tariff reform and wool are worth the close attention of every 
thinking man in the land.” — Chattanooga News. 

“This magazine will certainly grow rapidly ia public esteem.” — Bichmond 
Times. 

“ It is uniq^ue in containing more reading than advertising matter, a feature that 
some of its older contemporaries might emulate to their obvious advantage and ! 
improvement.” — Burlington Hawkeye. 

“It will attract attention by its strength and vigor, and independent treatment |! 
of the foremost political topics.”— (N. Y.) Herald. j 

“The number before us gives unmistakable evidence that this new aspirant for 
public honors is to be essentially and distinctively American, unfettered by pre- 
judice, and one whose contents will be educative and intensely interesting, not 
only to those who cursorilv glance over current monthlies, bnt to those who, read- | 
ing from cover to cover, desire a magazine whose every article shall be thoroughly 
readable from a popular standpoint.” — The Progressive Teacher. 

Belpord’s Monthly is a first-class medium for adver^^ising. as the publishers 
guarantee a bona-fide circulation of at least 70,000 copies per month. i 

Price, $2.50 a year, or 25 cents per number. 


BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.. Publishers, 


Chicago, New York,, and San Francisco, 


BELFORD’S MAGAZINE 

DONN PIATT, Editor. 

A COMPLETE COPYRIGHT NOVEL IN EACH NUMBER. 


More than two thousand newspapers have reviewed and com- 
mented favorably on the Magazine amon^ them the following: 

“Altogether the Magazine is full both of interest and promise.”— C'Aicag’O 
Herald. 

“ If the Magazine contained nothing besides the 100 pages of Elizabeth W. Bel- 
lamy’s novel, ‘Old Man Gilbert,’ it would be worth more than its price. The story 
is of Florida life, and, in action, interest, humor, dialect, and portrayal of negro 
and Southern types, it deserves the highest rank among literary productions of the 
New South.”— C'Aicag^o Tribune. 

” Altogether the monthly seems likely to win very wide reading, and to deserve 
it quite as much as some more pretentious elder sisters.” — Chicago Times 

“It is really a first-class publication both in matter and appearance.”— C'Aicag'o 
Journal. 

“ Belpo^rd’s Magazine offers in its first number * * * a long story or novel 
ette by a Southern writer, Mrs. Bellamy. This story is really above the average of 
magazine fiction, and it is far from needing the fiattering letter with which the 
author of St. Elmo introduces it.”— iY. Y. Tribune. 

“ Belpord's Magazine has been wise enough to select the keenest and most 
slashing writer at its command, Col. Bonn Piatt, to edit it and to contribute to its 
pages. * * * Such Republican contributors as Coates Kinney, one of whose 
stirring lyrics is worth the price of an entire volume.” — Springfield Begister. 

‘ American magazine literature has been substantially enriched by the opening 
number of Belford’s new magazine.” — N. Y. Standard. 

“ The articles on tariff reform and wool are worth the close attention of every 
thinking man in the land.” — Chattanooga News. 

“This magazine will certainly grow rapidly in public esieem.."— Richmond 
Times. 

“ It is unique in containing more reading than advertising matter, a feature that 
some of its older contempofari^ s might emulate to their obvious advantage aed 
improvement.” — Burlington Hawkey e. 

“It will attract attention by its strength and vigor, and independent treatment 
of the foremost political Syracuse (N. Y.) Herald. 

“ The number before us gives unmistakable evidence that this new aspirant for 
public honors is to be essentially and distinctively American, unfettered by pre- 
judice, and one whose contents will be educative and intensely interesting, not 
only to those who cursorily glance over current monthlies, but to those who, read- 
ing from cover to cover, desire a magazine whose every article shall be thoroughly 
readable from a popular standpoint.” — The Progressive Teacher. 

Belpord’s Monthly is a first-class medium for advertising, as the publishers 
guarantee a bona-fide circulation of at least 70,000 copies per month. 

Price, $2.50 a year, or 25 cents per number. 


BELFORD. CLARKE & CO.. Publishers. 

Chicago^ New York, and San Francisco, 


BELFORD’S 

MHGHZINE. 

DONN PIATT, Editor. 


Washington, D. C. July 16, 1888. 


We have examined BELFORDS MAGAZINE; find that in its 
political tone and contents it is distinctly and thoroughly demo- 
cratic; of high literary merit, and we take pleasure in commending 
it to all who want a fair, able and fearless exponent of sound 
principles, combined with the literature of a first-class Magazine. 


A. H. GARLAND, Attorney General. 
JOHN M. BLACK, Com. of Pensions. 

D. W. VOOKHEES. U. S. S. 

JAMES B. BECK, U. S. S. 

JOS. C. S. BLACKBURN, U. S. S. 

J. R. MCPHERSON, U. S. S. 

JOHN W. DANIEL, U. S. S 
JOHN H. REAGAN, U. S. S. 

Z. B. VANCE, U. 8, S. 

M. C. BUTLER, U. S. S. 

JAS. Z. GEORGE, U. S. S. 

WADE HAMPTON, U. S. S. 

C. R. BRECKINRIDGE, M. C. 

W. C WHITTHORNE, M. C. 
THOMAS WILSON, M. C. 

JOS. WHEELER. M C. 
MELBOURNE H, FORD, M. C. 
GEORGE A ANDERSON, M. C. 
THOMAS R. HUDD. M. C. 

BKNTON McMILLIN, M. C. 

J^MES PHELAN, M. C. 

JOHN H ROGERS, M. C 
T. M. NORWOOD. M. C. 

JAMES N. BURNS, M. C. 

HENRY" GEORGE. 


DON M. DICKINSON, P. M. Genl. 

A. E. STEVENSON. 1st P. M. Q 
ELI 8AULSBURV, U. S. S. 

E. C. WALTHALL, U. S. S. 

W. G. SUMNER, Professor, Yale Col. 
JAMES K. JONES, U. S. S. 

R. Q. MILLS, M. C. 

JAMES H. BERRY, U. S. S. 

JAMES L PUGH, U. S. S. 

H B, PAYNE, U. S. S. 

C. C. MATSON, M. C. 

R. W. TOWNSHEND, M. C. 

J. H. OUTHWAI'l'E, M. C. 

H. H. CARLTON, M. C 

J. C. CLEMENS. M. 0. 

B. P. SHIVELY, M. C. 

Wm. C. OATES. M. C. 

W. J. STONHI, M. C. 

P. T GLASS. M. C. 

C. T. O’FERRALL, M. C. 

F. T. SHAW, M. C 

J R. WHITING, M. C. 

S. Z. LANDES, M. C. 

ALEX. M. DOCKERY. M. C. 

T. C. McRAE, M. C. 

JOHN E. HUTTON. M. C. 

H W. RUSK. M r. 

THOMAS E. POWELL 


Bedford’s Monthly is a first-cla,s^3 /ziedium for advertising, 
as the publishers guarantee a bo7ia-fide circulation of at least 70,000 
copies per month. 

Prices, $2.50 a year, or 25 cents per number. 


BELFORD. CURKE & CO.. Publishers. 

CHICAGO. SAI^ FRANCISCO 
















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